to pour one's heart out
- idiom
- Informal
- When she felt overwhelmed by sadness, she decided to pour her heart out to her best friend.
- just pour your heart out
Examples
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Listen, I'm not in the habit... of pouring my heart out on television.
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Lewis was pouring his heart out!
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Instead you go in there, you pour your heart out.
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I am pouring my heart out here.
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Thank you for pouring your heart out in this post.
Blog text (32) -
Keep pouring your heart out... you are making a difference.
Blog text (21) -
Baby, he was drunk and pouring his heart out.
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I pour my heart out to you and that's your response?
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I poured my heart out to her and told her how I kept comparing myself to her.
Blog text (28) -
During another break, he poured his heart out to the fans and thanked them for allowing Soundgarden to get back together and create new music.
Blog text (16)
Synonyms
Begin to talk honestly about your thoughts and feelings
To show strong feelings, especially when angry
Show or say your emotions to other people
To tell someone your feelings and thoughts freely
Say something honestly and with strong feeling
Talk about something worrying you so you feel better
Talk honestly without hiding facts or feelings
To tell someone your private feelings or secrets openly
Show your feelings with words, actions, or your face
To express strong feelings such as anger or sadness
To tell someone your secret or worrying thoughts and feelings
To tell someone or write down your thoughts to feel better
Antonyms
How Open
- Informal
- Informal
- Informal
Surface Forms
Morphology
pour + one's + heart + out
The phrase combines 'pour' (let liquid flow), 'heart' (seat of emotions) and 'out' to create a metaphor of emptying or releasing one's inner feelings, so a learner who knows the constituents can often infer the general sense. However the meaning is figurative rather than strictly compositional and requires recognizing the metaphorical use, so it is not fully predictable from the parts.
Etymology
The idiom pour one's heart out comes from a simple picture: imagine the heart as a cup full of feelings and you pour them out like water. That's why it now means 'to talk about your deepest feelings openly'.