Meaning
To stir deep feelings of tenderness, pity, or compassion. Said of stories, images, music, or appeals that move people strongly and make them respond emotionally, often with a hint of wariness, since deliberate emotional manipulation can be described the same way. Slightly sentimental or journalistic register; often used of charity appeals and emotional films. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Heartstrings began as an anatomical term. Etymonline records heart-strings from the late 15th century in old anatomy as the tendons and nerves that were believed to brace the heart, and dates the transferred sense, the strongest affections, to the 1590s. The OED's evidence for heartstring in the figurative sense of the heart's structure viewed as the source of intense feeling goes back to before 1425. Early modern anatomy really did describe cords and nerves holding the heart in place; modern anatomy does not support that picture, which is why the dictionaries mark the anatomical sense as old. The now-standard verb collocations, to pull, pluck, or tug at the heartstrings, develop the image of the emotions as strings that can be drawn or played upon; that instrumental reading is inference from the wording rather than a sourced explanation. The OED records the related adjective heart-tugging from 1844.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- pluck at the heartstrings
- pull at the heartstrings
- tug on the heartstrings
Usage Examples
- The charity appeal tugs at the heartstrings without ever becoming manipulative.
- That airport reunion scene tugged at my heartstrings more than I expected.
- Documentaries about rescued wildlife reliably tug at the viewers' heartstrings.