heart

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  THE QUEEN OF HEARTS
• WordNet 3.6
  • n heart a playing card in the major suit that has one or more red hearts on it "he led the queen of hearts","hearts were trumps"
  • n heart an inclination or tendency of a certain kind "he had a change of heart"
  • n heart the courage to carry on "he kept fighting on pure spunk","you haven't got the heart for baseball"
  • n heart the hollow muscular organ located behind the sternum and between the lungs; its rhythmic contractions move the blood through the body "he stood still, his heart thumping wildly"
  • n heart the locus of feelings and intuitions "in your heart you know it is true","her story would melt your bosom"
  • n heart the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience "the gist of the prosecutor's argument","the heart and soul of the Republican Party","the nub of the story"
  • n heart a positive feeling of liking "he had trouble expressing the affection he felt","the child won everyone's heart","the warmness of his welcome made us feel right at home"
  • n heart a firm rather dry variety meat (usually beef or veal) "a five-pound beef heart will serve six"
  • n heart an area that is approximately central within some larger region "it is in the center of town","they ran forward into the heart of the struggle","they were in the eye of the storm"
  • n heart a plane figure with rounded sides curving inward at the top and intersecting at the bottom; conventionally used on playing cards and valentines "he drew a heart and called it a valentine"
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Additional illustrations & photos:

The King of Hearts

Almost naked, foot-sore, heart-sore, he arrived at the convent gate

"AFOOT AND LIGHT-HEARTED."

fire of love that burns in the hearts of people

The Heart and Large Vessels

Section of the Heart

• Interesting fact: The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache
• • Heart (Anat) A hollow, muscular organ, which, by contracting rhythmically, keeps up the circulation of the blood. "Why does my blood thus muster to my heart !"
  • Heart A term of affectionate or kindly and familiar address. "I speak to thee, my heart ."
  • Heart Courage; courageous purpose; spirit. "Eve, recovering heart , replied.""The expelled nations take heart , and when they fly from one country invade another."
  • Heart One of the suits of playing cards, distinguished by the figure or figures of a heart; as, hearts are trumps.
  • Heart That which resembles a heart in shape; especially, a roundish or oval figure or object having an obtuse point at one end, and at the other a corresponding indentation, -- used as a symbol or representative of the heart.
  • Heart The nearest the middle or center; the part most hidden and within; the inmost or most essential part of any body or system; the source of life and motion in any organization; the chief or vital portion; the center of activity, or of energetic or efficient action; as, the heart of a country, of a tree, etc. "Exploits done in the heart of France.""Peace subsisting at the heart Of endless agitation."
  • Heart The seat of the affections or sensibilities, collectively or separately, as love, hate, joy, grief, courage, and the like; rarely, the seat of the understanding or will; -- usually in a good sense, when no epithet is expressed; the better or lovelier part of our nature; the spring of all our actions and purposes; the seat of moral life and character; the moral affections and character itself; the individual disposition and character; as, a good, tender, loving, bad, hard, or selfish heart . "Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain."
  • v. i Heart To form a compact center or heart; as, a hearting cabbage.
  • v. t Heart härt To give heart to; to hearten; to encourage; to inspirit. "My cause is hearted ; thine hath no less reason."
  • Heart Vigorous and efficient activity; power of fertile production; condition of the soil, whether good or bad. "That the spent earth may gather heart again."
  • Heart Vital part; secret meaning; real intention. "And then show you the heart of my message."
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• Interesting fact: An Octopus has 3 hearts
• • n heart The principal organ of the circulation of the blood in man and other animals; the physiological center of the blood-vascular system. It is a hollow muscular or otherwise contractile organ which receives blood in its interior, and by contractions or pulsations drives it out again, and thus keeps up the circulation of this fluid. In its simplest form, as in the early embryo of a vertebrate and in many invertebrate animals, it is simply an expanded part or expansion in the course of a blood-vessel, capable of beating, pulsating, or alternately dilating and contracting, and so acting upon the contained fluid mechanically. (See cuts under Astacidæ and Balanoglossus.) In the process of development one or both orifices of this bulb are furnished with a valve permitting the flow of blood in one direction and preventing it in the other; and the bulb is partly divided by a constriction across it, one of the resulting parts being specially devoted to the reception of blood, as from a vein, and its transmission only into the other part, which then by contraction urges it onward, as into an artery. This is the structure of the two-chambered or bilocular heart of the lower vertebrates, in which the receiving-chamber is the auricle, the distributing-chamber is the ventricle, and the communication between them is the auriculoventricular opening. In a more complex form the bilocular heart is partly divided into right and left halves by a constriction or partition which separates the single auricle into two, the result being the three-chambered or trilocular heart, in which one auricle, the right, receives venous blood from the body at large, the left auricle receives aërated or arterial blood from gills or lungs, and each auricle pours its blood through its own auriculoventricular orifice into a common and single ventricle, which then sends a current of mixed venous and arterial blood to all parts of the body. Such is the type of the reptilian heart; though the right and left auricles are in fact incompletely separated from each other, retaining an interauricular opening, which in the embryos of birds and mammals is known as the foramen ovale. Finally, the entire separation of the auricles, and complete division of a common ventricular cavity into a right and a left ventricle by an interventricular septum or partition, result in the perfectly four-chambered or quadrilocular heart of all adult vertebrates above reptiles. Here the right and left sides of the heart, each consisting of an auricle and a ventricle, are entirely separate, so that no mixture of venous and arterial currents is possible. (See circulation of the blood, under circulation.) The ventricles are larger and more muscular than the auricles, since the former have to drive the blood through the body, while the auricles have only to inject it into the ventricles. All the orifices of the heart are more or less completely guarded by sets of valves. The right auriculoventricular valves are called tricuspid; the left, mitral: in both cases from their form in the human heart, in which three membranous valves on the right side and two on the left are operated by delicate fibrous cords (the chordæ tendineæ) and certain muscular processes from the ventricular walls (the columnæ carneæ). The orifices of the aorta and of the pulmonary artery are alike guarded by three crescentic valves, called, from their shape, the semilunar valves. The orifices by which veins enter either auricle either are or are not provided with valves, in different cases, or in different animals. The contraction of the muscular walls of the heart as a whole, or of any one of its chambers, is the systole; the corresponding and alternating dilatation of its cavities, or any one of them, is the diastole; the two movements together complete a cardiac cycle. In vertebrates the heart is situated in the thorax, between the lungs, and enveloped in a serous membrane, the pericardium, which is generally a closed sac with one layer, the visceral or cardiac pericardium, or epicardium, investing the whole surface of the organ and the roots of the great vessels which spring from it, and the other, the parietal layer, reflected over the surface of adjacent structures. The primitive position of the heart is always median; but in the course of its development from the embryo it generally becomes tilted over to one side, the left, as is usual in the higher vertebrates, where the point or apex of the organ lies considerably to the left, and the whole organ becomes unsymmetrical both in its own shape and in its relative position. In general the form of the heart is conoidal, with the base (the auricles) upward or forward, and the apex (the ventricles) downward or backward and sinistral. In man the heart is about 5 inches long, 3½ inches in greatest width, and 2 inches in greatest depth; it weighs 10 or 12 ounces in the male, and 8 or 10 in the female. It lies obliquely in the chest, with its broad fixed base uppermost, a little backward and to the right; its free apex downward, forward, and to the left, so that its beating may be seen or felt at a point an inch or less to the inner side of, and about an inch and a half below, the left nipple, between the fifth and sixth ribs. All the cavities of the heart are lined with a thin smooth membrane, the endocardium, which also invests the valves and is directly continuous with the lining of all the vessels which enter or leave the heart. Its substance, the myocardium, is almost entirely muscular; the muscle is a peculiar striated one, of a deep-red color; its fibers are intricately disposed in two sets, auricular and ventricular, separated by fibrous rings which surround the auriculoventricular orifices. It is supplied with blood for its own nourishment by the right and left coronary arteries, the first branches of the aorta; they are accompanied by cardiac veins. Its nerves are derived from the cardiac plexuses, formed by the pneumogastric and sympathetic nerves. Its action is involuntary. In all other mammals, and in birds, the heart is substantially the same as in man, with differences in relative size, in shape, and in the detail of its openings and valves; but in the acranial vertebrates, the lancelets, it is rudimentary. See also cuts under circulation, embryo, lung, and thorax.
  • n heart The human heart or breast considered as the seat of all or of some of the mental faculties; hence, in common figurative use, these faculties themselves. The emotions and affections, especially moral capacity or disposition, as for love or hatred, benevolence or malevolence, pity or scorn, courage or fear, faith or distrust, etc.
  • n heart The intellectual faculties; especially, inmost or most private thought; innermost opinions or convictions; genuine or intense desire or sentiment: as, she despised him in her heart; the heart of a man is unsearchable; the devices of the heart; to set one's heart upon something.
  • n heart Good feeling; love; kindness; sensibility: as, she is all heart; he is all head and no heart; to gain one's heart; to give the heart to God.
  • n heart Courage; spirit; determination; firmness of will; capacity for perseverance or endurance: as, to take heart; his heart failed him.
  • n heart The breast, as covering the heart, considered as the seat of affection.
  • n heart The inner part of anything; the middle or center: as, the heart of a country or a town.
  • n heart The chief, vital, or most essential part; the vigorous or efficacious part; the core.
  • n heart A person, especially a brave or affectionate person: used as a term of encouragement, praise, or endearment.
  • n heart Strength; power of producing; vigor; fertility: as, to keep the land in heart.
  • n heart Something that has the shape or form of a heart; especially, a roundish or an oval figure or object having an obtuse point at one end and a corresponding indentation or depression at the other, regarded as representing the figure of a heart; especially, such a figure on a playing-card.
  • n heart One of a suit of playing-cards marked with such a figure.
  • n heart plural A game of cards played with the full pack by four persons. The rules are the same as in whist, except that there are no partners and no trump, and that the tricks count nothing, but at the end of the hand the player who has taken the fewest hearts receives a counter from each of the others for each heart that other has taken. The game is also played with variations from these rules.
  • n heart Nautical, a block of hard wood in the shape of a heart for the lanyards of stays to reeve through.
  • n heart In botany, the core of a tree; the solid central part without sap or albumen. See heart-wood.
  • heart To give heart to; encourage; hearten.
  • heart In masonry, to build, as the interior of a rubble wall, solidly with stone and mortar.
  • heart To form a close, compact head, as a plant; especially, to have the central part of the head close and compact: as, some varieties of cabbage heart well.
  • n heart An excessive deposit of fat around the heart.
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• Interesting fact: The left lung is smaller than the right lung to make room for the heart.
• • n Heart härt the organ in animal systems that circulates the blood: the vital, inner, or chief part of anything: the seat of the affections, &c., esp. love: the affections: courage: vigour: secret meaning or design: that which resembles a heart: a person, esp. as implying courage or affectionateness—a term of endearment or encouragement: anything heart-shaped, esp. that one of the four suits in a pack of cards bearing a heart in red
  • v.t Heart to encourage, hearten
  • v.i Heart to form a compact head, as a plant
  • v.t Heart to break the heart of
  • n Heart (Spens.) grief
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• Source Unknown

  

  “America is a willingness of the heart.”
• John Ruskin

  

  “They are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love change.”
• Nikita Ivanovich Panin

  

  “Two men please God -- who serves Him with all his heart because he knows Him; who seeks Him with all his heart because he knows Him not.”
• Thomas Campbell

  

  “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”
• Deepak Chopra

  

  “The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers.”
• Princess of Wales Diana

  

  “I wear my heart on my sleeve.”

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