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heartache

heartaches

The death of your beloved cat may cause you heartache, or a powerful feeling of loss and sadness. Heartache is often caused by the grief of losing someone you love.

Although it doesn't necessarily cause physical discomfort, heartache is an emotionally painful experience. You feel heartache when you lose a loved one, especially when the person you love dies, or when it's impossible for you to be together. Shakespearean tragedies are famously full of heartache. The root of heartache is the Old English heortece, which originally meant a literal "physical pain in the heart," and later came to mean "anguish."

Definitions of heartache
  1. noun
    intense sorrow caused by loss of a loved one (especially by death)
    synonyms: brokenheartedness, grief, heartbreak
    see moresee less
    types:
    dolor, dolour
    (poetry) painful grief
    type of:
    sorrow
    an emotion of great sadness associated with loss or bereavement
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