to put heart in
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
poner el corazón en
- She always puts heart in her paintings.
Examples
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The chef put heart in every dish, and it showed in the flavors.
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Why don't you put heart in your work?
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If you put heart in your studies, you'll see much better results.
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She always put heart in her volunteer work, making a real difference to those around her.
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If you put heart in your studies, you'll see much better results.
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She always put heart in her volunteer work, making a real difference to those around her.
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The chef put heart in every dish, and it showed in the flavors.
Synonyms
272
2.9
To spend time, effort, or care on work
1
4.5
To try very hard and feel strongly about something
Great care and effort for your job
Antonyms
How Committed
465
3.7
- Informal
∞
1.0
∞
1.0
- Informal
26
5.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to invest deep sincere emotion or effort into something' is directly derivable from combining 'put' (to place/bring into a state) with 'heart' (seat of emotion) and the locative 'in/into'; the construction follows a common English pattern 'put X into Y' so learners can infer the sense. Cross-linguistic parallels (e.g. Spanish 'poner el corazón en', French 'mettre du cœur à') make this compositional and immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows the constituents.
Etymology
The phrase put heart in creates a clear picture: you take your heart (your true feelings) and place it into a task, as if putting something warm into a box. So, to put heart in something means 'to do it with deep feeling or real effort', not just do it in a routine way.