at heart
77
3.5
- idiom
:
en el fondo
- You know I only have your best interests at heart.
- good at heart
- best interests at heart
- remain at heart
On the one hand, I'm a journalist at heart, and more transparency is good.
- On the one hand, I'm a journalist at heart, and more transparency is good.
- These two people do not have your best interests at heart.
- Just want to say I am also a Midwesterner at heart.
- And don't take help from the people who do not have our best interests at heart, who are our enemies.
- And in some ways I'm a bit, I'm an artist at heart.
- But we like to think that our friends will have our best interests at heart.
- You know, I'm a storyteller at heart.
- Entrepreneurs are always juvenile delinquents at heart.
- And having one other person with great taste who has the project's best interest at heart, that's what a great producer does for you.
- Especially in the context of narcissistic people who raised you, who claim to love you, who claim to have your best interests at heart but don't.
- He actually thinks everybody's sort of just one person, that the Ukrainian people are actually Russians at heart.
- And I got to watch my uncles, you know, that I felt were good people at heart.
- And so I assumed that this was a mom who, who didn't love her child, didn't have his best interest at heart.
- And if anyone still believes that the media has humanity's best intention at heart, I think that I would love more proof of that.
- But, but the point is, at heart, I'm fundamental driven.
- He's a cage footballer at heart who knows how to beat people it with ease.
Examples
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Honey, your father has his issues... but at heart he is an honest and a decent man.
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He may seem tough, but at heart, he is a caring person.
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But he is, at heart, not the guy you see on screen.
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I know, I know that you have my best interests at heart.
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No, he was not at heart a good person, and he had proved that.
Fiction book (1999) -
I say that at heart, I'm a human first.
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I guess I'm a country girl at heart.
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Your sister is a poet at heart.
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On the one hand, I'm a journalist at heart, and more transparency is good.
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We are all sentimentalists at heart, and the boy's story had touched me.
Fiction book (1998)
Synonyms
117
3.5
In your real feelings or beliefs that you do not show
3
6.6
Basically what is most true about someone or something
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
at + heart
The meaning 'used to say what someone is really like' is directly inferable from 'at' (locative) + 'heart' (central core or feelings): it conveys being 'in one's core' or 'in truth.' The heart-as-core metaphor is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily understand this usage.
Etymology
At heart comes from the old idea that the heart is the place of true feelings, so if someone is kind at heart their real feelings are kind even if they look different. That's why it means 'really' or 'in truth'.