heartless
Americanadjective
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unfeeling; unkind; unsympathetic; harsh; cruel.
heartless words; a heartless ruler.
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Archaic. lacking courage or enthusiasm; spiritless; disheartened.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of heartless
1300–50; Middle English herteles, Old English heortlēas. See heart, -less
Explanation
Someone who's heartless is inconsiderate and insensitive to other people's feelings. It would be heartless to smash a little kid's carefully carved Jack o' lantern. A heartless person might respond glibly to a friend's sad story about his sick grandmother, or push a hungry cat out the door on a rainy night. If you're heartless, you're cold and uncaring. Another, older meaning of this adjective is "lacking courage," from the Old English heortleas, "dispirited or dejected." The modern meaning was coined by poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816.
Vocabulary lists containing heartless
"The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet," Vocabulary from Act 1
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"The Clever Old Woman" and "Argument"
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Adventures of Don Quixote
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Heartless, she wants a bigger story, something that would put her byline on the front page.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 7, 2025
"Garage is actually a way of life," says MC Bushkin from Heartless Crew, which formed in the 90s.
From BBC • Aug. 16, 2024
They debated which work of his was their favorite — “The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother” or “The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor.”
From New York Times • Mar. 10, 2024
The "Heartless" rapper went further to claim that security hadn't let him enter the home because Kardashian's new boyfriend was inside.
From Fox News • Jan. 15, 2022
Heartless treachery, then, was the result of being kind to old friends—and oh, what an odious world it was!
From The Vanity Girl by MacKenzie, Compton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
