have a heart
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Show sympathy or kindness
Literally: possess a heart
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
But Monaghan proved that they still have a sizeable heart.
' And wasn't she that desperate that I didn't have the heart to tell her no? '
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “have a heart” mean?
Show sympathy or kindness Literally: possess a heart
Is “have a heart” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.
What is the closest equivalent?
“lên cơn đau tim” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.