One of English's oldest words, traceable through an unbroken chain to a PIE root spoken over 6,000 years ago.
The hollow muscular organ that pumps blood through the circulatory system. Also used figuratively to mean the center of emotion, courage, or essential nature of something.
English 'heart' descends from Old English 'heorte,' which came from Proto-Germanic '*hertô.' This traces back to the Proto-Indo-European root '*ḱerd-' meaning 'heart,' one of the oldest and most stable words in the Indo-European language family, preserved with remarkable consistency across languages for over 5,000 years. The PIE root is also the source of Latin 'cor' (genitive 'cordis'), Greek 'kardia,' and Sanskrit 'hṛd,' demonstrating the word's deep antiquity and the universal human impulse to name this vital organ.
The word 'courage' comes from Latin 'cor' (heart) via Old French 'corage,' literally meaning 'heartness.' The same PIE root *ḱerd- that gave English 'heart' also gave, through Latin, the words 'record' (originally 'to pass back through the heart,' i.e. to remember), 'accord' ('heart to heart'), and 'discord' ('hearts apart').
Words closest in meaning, ranked by similarity