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
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.
Throwing out your old family photos can feel heartless, but it may be the right decision.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026
Torossian described the actions of the Swedish Migration Agency as "heartless".
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
Her death made him reclusive and heartless, accelerating his loss of faith in humanity.
From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2026
Soon the family finds itself at the mercy of poor soil, fickle weather and a heartless landlord on “the westernmost scrap of Europe.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
It was like some heartless, survival-based reality TV show, only nobody won any money.
From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
