Heartbroken describes feeling very sad and deeply hurt emotionally, often after a loss or the end of a relationship.
From “heart” plus the past participle “broken,” treating the heart as if it can literally break. This metaphor has been used in English and other languages for centuries.
The feeling of heartbreak is so strong that people really do feel chest pain and physical heaviness. The language image is so powerful that medicine now recognizes “broken heart syndrome” as a real stress-related condition.
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