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.[2] The verb sense “to love” is from the 1977I ❤ NY advertising campaign.[2]
Notes on spelling
The spelling ⟨ear⟩ for/ɑː(ɹ)/ is paralleled byhearken andhearth, but is problematics since a Early Modern variant with/ɛːr/ can be posited for those words, but notheart. Perhaps it represents Middle Scotshart/hɛːrt/ (reflecting the Scots lengthening of/a/ before/r/ then a consonant, then the early actuation of theGreat Vowel Shift in Scots) or a parallel development in Northern England. Alternatively, a back-spelling by speakers of dialects where preconsonantal/ɛːr/ was shortened early, allowing it to undergo the late Middle English lowering to/ar/ (reflected in forms such aslarn "learn") is possible.
"Do what theheart commands," Tothero says. "The heart is our only guide."
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.
a good, tender, loving, bad, hard, or selfishheart
Upon his browes was pourtraid vgly death, / And in his eies the furies of hisheart, / That ſhine as Comets, menacing reueng, / And caſts a pale complexion on his cheeks.
1667,John Milton, “Book IX”, inParadise Lost.[…], London:[…] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker[…];[a]nd by Robert Boulter[…];[a]nd Matthias Walker,[…],→OCLC; republished asParadise Lost in Ten Books:[…], London: Basil Montagu Pickering[…],1873,→OCLC:
The expelled nations takeheart, and when they fled from one country, invaded another.
2008, "Rights trampled in rush to deport immigrant workers,"Quaker Action (magazine), vol. 89, no. 3, page 8:
"We provided a lot of brains and a lot ofheart to the response when it was needed," says Sandra Sanchez, director of AFSC's Immigrants' Voice Program in Des Moines.
2011 September 2, “Wales 2-1 Montenegrof”, in(Please provide the book title or journal name)[2]:
The result still leaves Wales bottom of the group but in betterheart for Tuesday night's trip to face England at Wembley, who are now outright leaders after their 3-0 win in Bulgaria.
2016 September 28, Tom English, “Celtic 3–3 Manchester City”, in(Please provide the book title or journal name)[3],BBC Sport:
Theheart from the home team was immense. Some of them were out on their feet before the end, but they dug in, throwing themselves in front of shots and crosses, surviving.
Vigorous and efficient activity; power of fertile production; condition of the soil, whether good or bad.
1697,Virgil, “The First Book of theGeorgics”, inJohn Dryden, transl.,The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis.[…], London:[…]Jacob Tonson,[…],→OCLC,page52, lines106–109:
Both theſe unhappy Soils the Swain forbears, / And keeps a Sabbath of alternate Years: / That the ſpent Earth may gatherheart again; / And, better'd by Ceſſation, bear the Grain.
(archaic)A term of affectionate or kindly and familiar address.
Certain unscrupulous men may call upon you here in your dressing-room. They will lavish you with flowers, with compliments, withphials ofHungary water andmethuselahs of the costliest champagne. You must be wary of such men, myhearts, they are not to be trusted.
(obsolete, except in the phrase "by heart") Memory.
[…] I would outstare the sternest eyes that look, / Outbrave theheart most daring on earth, / Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear, / Yea, mock the lion when he roars for prey,[…]
At last she spoke in a low voice, hesitating slightly, nevertheless going with incisive directness into the veryheart of the problem.
1980,AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page150:
The narrow streets that twist and turn through the compactheart of Dent are surfaced with cobbles which, in the absence of pavements, spread right across from doorstep to doorstep.
1995, Alberto Zola, “Introduction”, inChina[4], Tiger Books International,→ISBN,→OCLC,page23:
Theheart of the modern city is T’ien-an-men Square, one of the largest — if notthe largest — square in the world, created expressly in the Fifties on the ashes of the old “Tartar city,” an agglomeration of small and unassuming low grey houses, inhabited by the populace that was once excluded from the “Forbidden City.”
^George Hayward (1834), “Of the Circulation of the Blood”, inOutlines of Human Physiology; Designed for the Use of the Higher Classes in Common Schools, Boston, Mass.: Marsh, Capen & Lyon,→OCLC,page47.
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