to warm the cockles of one's heart
2
7.5
- idiom
- Informal
:
calentar el corazón
- And it always warms the cockles of my heart when people have been following me online long enough to want a drawing of Blue or Daggett.
Examples
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Nothing like a nice soak to warm the cockles of your heart.
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The man who warms the cockles of your heart.
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- It warmed the cockles of my heart.
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And what some individuals are doing warms the cockles of my heart.
Blog text (17) -
Your comment warms the cockles of my heart.
Blog text (15) -
It'll just warm the cockles of her heart.
Blog text (16) -
Oh, well, I tell you, boys... being here to witness this happy homecoming warms the cockles of my heart.
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Nothing like a nice soak to warm the cockles of your heart.
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Seeing the children play together always warms the cockles of my heart.
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Her kind words really warmed the cockles of my heart.
Synonyms
392
1.0
To make someone feel happier
234
1.4
To feel happier after being sad or to make someone feel happier
23
3.2
To make someone feel happier and more hopeful
13
5.5
Make someone feel happier or more confident
8
2.8
To make someone feel happier or more cheerful
8
3.9
To make someone feel happier
3
3.7
Make someone feel strong emotion or sympathy
2
3.0
To give someone a lot of happiness, often by a small kind act
1
3.5
To make someone feel happy
1
3.9
To make someone feel happier when they are sad
1
9.2
To make someone feel a strong emotion
1
3.4
Help someone feel happier
To make someone feel more cheerful and confident
Antonyms
How Pleased
201
2.1
- Informal
2
7.5
48
1.0
1
3.5
216
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
warm + the + cockles + of + one + heart
The overall meaning ('to make someone feel deeply pleased') cannot be derived from the literal parts because 'cockles' is a non-transparent, archaic metaphoric element and the phrase is idiomatic. Even if a learner knows 'warm' and 'heart', the intervening image ('cockles of one's heart') is obscure and not compositional, so a B1 learner would not predict the idiomatic sense from the constituents.
Etymology
Warm the cockles of one's heart may come from an old word for small shells. Poets long ago compared the heart's inner parts to little shells called cockles, so to 'warm' them was to make those parts feel warm and happy. That's why the phrase means 'to make someone feel deeply pleased'.