heart-rending
Britishadjective
Other Word Forms
- heart-rendingly adverb
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.
That leaves IVF patients with the heart-rending decision of when to stop trying.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 14, 2025
Later, she would sob huge, sloppy, heart-rending tears asking why her parents wouldn’t come get her — had they forgotten her?
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 3, 2024
Since the early 1990s, Gilmour’s frequent lyrical collaborator has been wife Polly Sampson, whose sensitivity and topicality often reveals a heart-rending reality that’s never heavy-handed.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 1, 2024
Prime Minister Narendra Modi described it as "heart-rending."
From BBC • May 27, 2024
Elizabeth’s heart-rending eloquence failed to move the judges from their settled conviction in the criminality of the saintly sufferer.
From "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
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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.