at heart
Idioms-
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.”
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In one's deepest feelings, as a great concern, as in The governor has the party's best interests at heart . [Early 1700s]
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.
He was a romantic at heart, and yet he never once asked me to marry him.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026
I chose Joe because I’m a PI at heart, and there’s a tennis background.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2026
"Unfortunately, I think this was marketed as a general audience movie, when at heart, this is an art-house film."
From Barron's ● Oct. 12, 2026
She’s a perfectionist at heart, something I remember with a sigh when I help her hang a picture or center a vase of flowers on her table.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at heart, I said, turning on Mr. Jaggers:—
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
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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.
