Heartfelt

How to spell heartfelt

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce heartfelt

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does heartfelt mean?

1. adjectiveSincere and deeply felt; expressing genuine emotion.

Heartfelt in a sentence

• She wrote a heartfelt letter thanking the nurses who cared for her father.

• His heartfelt apology finally repaired the friendship.

Where does heartfelt come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Heartfelt is a transparent English compound, joining heart with felt, the past participle of the verb feel. Both halves are deeply native, descending from Old English: heorte for the heart and felan for to feel, the same Germanic roots that survive in modern German Herz and fuhlen. From its earliest sense the heart was treated not merely as a bodily organ but as the seat of emotion and sincerity, so to call something heartfelt was to say it was genuinely felt in the heart rather than merely spoken. The compound itself appears in English around the early 1700s, capturing the idea of a feeling that is deep and sincere. Because both elements are ordinary everyday words, the only spelling care needed is remembering it is written as one solid word with the silent ending of felt, not as two pieces.

How the word is built

• heart (the organ as seat of emotion)
• felt (past participle of feel)