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heartbroken

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Etymology and origin of the English word heartbroken

Confidence
Established
Formation
Compound
First attested
1572 Arthur Golding's translation of Bullinger
Ultimate origins
Proto-Germanic *hertāEnglish broken
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Old English heorte
English heart
English heartbroken
From the same root
English sweetheart ← heart

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈhɑːtˌbrəʊk(ə)n/[1]
  • US: /ˈhɑːrtˌbroʊk(ə)n/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English heart + broken,[2][3][4] and Etymonline describes it as a past-participle formation from the noun heartbreak.[5] The OED compares the phrase “to break a person’s heart” and the earlier noun, recorded from about 1330.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Overwhelmed with grief, anguish or despair; broken-hearted: 1572, in Arthur Golding's translation of a work by Heinrich Bullinger.[2][6]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word described a person crushed by sorrow;[2][6] from 1605, in Cyril Tourneur, it was also used of an action or feeling that shows or comes from such grief.[2][6] Etymonline dates the adjective, also written heart-broken, to the 1580s,[5] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate to about 1586,[7] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the OED to 1572.[3][2] The verb heartbreak, to break someone's heart, is a later formation (1674), made after the noun and the adjective;[2] Merriam-Webster takes it as a back-formation from heartbroken.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 1330 – the noun heartbreak, overwhelming sorrow.[2]
  • 1572 – heartbroken, overwhelmed with grief.[2][3]
  • 1605 – of an action or feeling, showing or resulting from heartbreak.[2][6]
  • 1674 – the verb heartbreak, to break the heart of.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Overcome by deep sorrow, grief or disappointment: The team was heartbroken after losing the final in the last minute.[8][3][9]
  2. Showing or caused by such grief: a heartbroken letter.[2][9]

Word family

  • heartbrokenly
  • heartbrokenness
  • heartbreak
  • heartbreaking
  • brokenhearted
  • heart
  • broken
  • break

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  7. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Cite this entry

“Heartbroken.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/heartbroken. Accessed 31 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·