When his wife died he was full of heartrending grief.
Source: tatoeba (2561560)
Heartrending
Synonyms for "heartrending" (35 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (7)
Strong matches (11)
Adjective(3 words)
Adjective(1 words)
Related words (17)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
Synonyms
1 entriesderived
1 entriesderived from
2 entriesrelated to
4 entriessimilar
1 entriesTranslations
22 translations across 9 languages.
German
2 entries- herzzerreißend adj (that causes great grief)
- herzzerreißend adj (that elicits deep sympathy)
Irish
1 entries- coscrach adj (that causes great grief)
Japanese
1 entries- 痛ましい adj (that causes great grief)
Māori
1 entries- tarariki adj (that causes great grief)
Norwegian Bokmål
2 entries- hjerteskjærende adj (that causes great grief)
- hjerteskjærende adj (that elicits deep sympathy)
Polish
3 entries- chwytający za serce adj (that elicits deep sympathy)
- rozdzierający serce adj (that causes great grief)
- łamiący serce adj (that causes great grief)
Russian
3 entries- го́рестный adj (that causes great grief)
- душераздира́ющий adj (that causes great grief)
- душераздира́ющий adj (that elicits deep sympathy)
Spanish
4 entries- desgarrador adj (that causes great grief)
- desolador adj (that causes great grief)
- devastador adj (that causes great grief)
- emotivo adj (that causes great grief)
Swedish
4 entries- hjärtskärande adj (that causes great grief)
- hjärtskärande adj (that elicits deep sympathy)
- hjärtslitande adj (that causes great grief)
- hjärtslitande adj (that elicits deep sympathy)
Sample sentences
5 total sentences available.
[T]he old man, who appeared to be an ardent fisherman, told me of the large trout he caught in the neighbourhood thirty years ago, when he came here from Gudbrandsdale, and made the most heartrending complaints of the decrease of fish and increase of saw-dust, just as Sir Humphry Davy makes in his Salmonia.
Source: wiktionary
It wavered an instant—then there was a heartrending crash—and the canary-coloured cart, their pride and their joy, lay on its side in the ditch, an irredeemable wreck.
Source: wiktionary
I am suddenly assaulted by the most heartrending puppy-dog eyes I've ever seen as Emi pouts.
Source: wiktionary
Showing 4 of 5 available sentences.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.