Heartbreaking
adj, noun
adj, noun ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The breaking of a heart; great grief, anguish or distress.
"One could argue that Eliot's "great heartbreakings" were the overt physical signs of the inner psychological transformations achieved through brainwashing, cultural attack, and epidemic mortality."
Adjective
- 1 That causes great grief, anguish or distress.
"Things went well with the clearing on Friday, but by Saturday, February 3, a 70 m.p.h. blizzard set in, and against such heartbreaking conditions, although an effort was made with the plough to keep open the sections cleared on the previous day, ground was gradually lost, [...]."
Adjective
- 1 causing or marked by grief or anguish wordnet
Example
More examples"Dan revealed heartbreaking truths."
Etymology
From heart + breaking.
Related phrases
More for "heartbreaking"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.