to break someone's heart
34
3.4
- phrasal verb
- /breɪk ˈsʌmˌwʌnz hɑrt/
- Informal
:
romperle el corazón a alguien
- He didn't mean to break her heart when he said those things.
- going to break someone's heart
- knows it will break her heart
- want to break my someone's heart
Most of us are devastated if we believe we broke someone's heart, even if they behave badly.
- Most of us are devastated if we believe we broke someone's heart, even if they behave badly.
Examples
-
"We were a very close-knit family, and this just broke everybody's heart," Cleary explains.
Blog text (15) -
It breaks my heart.
-
So, you broke it off and broke her heart.
-
Oh, and, um, you know, the world will break your heart.
-
Yeah, he broke my heart.
-
You broke my heart, Joey.
-
I did not return home, and no doubt broke my parents' hearts.
Fiction book (1997) -
Just somethin' about that little girl, sick, without a mama, it just breaks my heart.
-
Most of us are devastated if we believe we broke someone's heart, even if they behave badly.
-
You're going to break your old man's heart.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Make someone suffer physical or emotional pain
∞
2.8
To suddenly make someone feel a strong emotion
386
4.7
To defeat completely, often by force, ending a group or idea
110
5.7
To hurt a person's feelings deeply
95
4.1
To make someone feel very sad
87
4.2
To make someone feel sad or discouraged
76
2.3
To make someone feel sad
52
2.5
Hurt someone's feelings by saying or doing something
48
4.6
Cause deep pain to someone's feelings and destroy their hopes
45
4.9
To make someone feel sad or upset
32
4.1
To make someone feel sad and lose hope
26
3.3
To feel sharp emotional pain after someone says something hurtful
1
4.6
To make someone cry because of a strong feeling like sadness or joy
1
7.6
To deeply hurt someone's feelings
1
7.9
To hurt someone's feelings very deeply
Antonyms
How Heartbreaking
221
4.9
- Informal
34
3.4
362
1.0
492
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'break' (to damage or cause to fail) with 'heart' used metaphorically as the center of emotions; together they naturally convey causing emotional pain. This metaphorical mapping (heart = emotions) is common across many languages, so an average B1 learner who knows the constituents will likely infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Break someone's heart may come from the old idea that the heart is where we keep love and feelings, and to break it is like badly hurting those feelings inside. So saying you break someone's heart means you cause them great sadness or 'heartache'.