heart

Meanings

Noun

• A muscular organ that pumps blood through the body, traditionally thought to be the seat of emotion.
• Emotions, kindness, moral effort, or spirit in general.
• The seat of the affections or sensibilities, collectively or separately, as love, hate, joy, grief, courage, etc.; rarely, the seat of the understanding or will; usually in a good sense; personality.
• Courage; courageous purpose; spirit.
• Vigorous and efficient activity; power of fertile production; condition of the soil, whether good or bad.
• Personality, disposition.
• A wight or being.
• A conventional shape or symbol used to represent the heart, love, or emotion: ♥ or sometimes .
• A playing card of the suit hearts featuring one or more heart-shaped symbols.
• The twenty-fourth Lenormand card.
• The centre, essence, or core.

Verb

• To be fond of.
• To give heart to; to hearten; to encourage.
• To fill an interior with rubble, as a wall or a breakwater.
• To form a dense cluster of leaves, a heart, especially of lettuce or cabbage.

Origin

• From Middle English herte, from Old English heorte ("heart"), from Proto-West Germanic *hertā, from Proto-Germanic *hertô ("heart"), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱḗr. .
• Most of the modern figurative senses (such as passion or compassion, spirit, inmost feelings, especially love, affection, and courage) were present in Old English. However, the meaning “center” dates from the early 14th century.
• The verb sense “to love” is from the 1977 I ❤ NY advertising campaign.