at heart

Idioms  

1. Fundamentally, basically, as in He's a good fellow at heart . It was first recorded in Alexander Pope's Epistle to a Lady (1735): “But every Woman is at heart a Rake.”

2. In one's deepest feelings, as a great concern, as in The governor has the party's best interests at heart . [Early 1700s]

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Example Sentences

While the actor is an emotional person at heart, Francesca is not.

From Los Angeles Times

I left there that night thinking that even my Newsom kin, the ones who had my best interests at heart, could get it wrong from time to time.

From Los Angeles Times

For Gomis, addressing the question of dual identity means dealing with "different ways of talking about the same thing at heart".

From Barron's

The title of Mr. Dikötter’s book is, of course, a play on Snow’s, whose effort is, “at heart, a romantic tale of Communists fighting in the hills for freedom.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Ms. Serpell’s tone is ardent and sometimes spicily polemical, but at heart this is informed, accessible literary analysis that demonstrates that Morrison’s true genius was as a stylist.

From The Wall Street Journal