heartrending
causing or expressing intense grief, anguish, or distress.
Origin of heartrending
1Other words from heartrending
- heart·rend·ing·ly, adverb
Words that may be confused with heartrending
- gut-wrenching, heartrending
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use heartrending in a sentence
I have to groan heartrendingly in one of them, and it's really hard to get up a good artistic groan, Marilla.
Anne Of Green Gables | Lucy Maud Montgomery"But such a cognition is of hell," he cried, and he let his face fall into his hands and sobbed heartrendingly.
A Pair of Patient Lovers | William Dean HowellsIt struck him as strangely changed, strangely and heartrendingly familiar.
Sisters | Kathleen NorrisThe little Boer girl, who is to stay another year, is terribly homesick for South Africa, and wept heartrendingly as we parted.
An American Girl in Munich | Mabel W. Daniels
British Dictionary definitions for heart-rending
causing great mental pain and sorrow
Derived forms of heart-rending
- heart-rendingly, adverb
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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