heart-rending

adjective

1. causing great mental pain and sorrow

Derived Forms

• ˈheart-ˌrendingly, adverb

Example Sentences

Since the early 1990s, Gilmour’s frequent lyrical collaborator has been wife Polly Sampson, whose sensitivity and topicality often reveals a heart-rending reality that’s never heavy-handed.

From Los Angeles Times

For anyone who needs a gut-punch primer in what the lack of reproductive freedom looks like now, the propulsive documentary “Zurawski v Texas” from co-directors Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault is here to put your voting decisions into sharply delineated, heart-rending focus.

From Los Angeles Times

And “Normal Thing,” a grower from Abrams’ latest album, was transformed with a heart-rending drum build.

From Los Angeles Times

Yousuf Abubakr, a UC Berkeley graduate student in mechanical engineering, said heart-rending images on social media of the suffering of Palestinian civilians prompted him to join the movement.

From Los Angeles Times

Oversight of what was the UK's largest opencast coalmine has been described as a case of "epic mismanagement" with "heart-rending" impacts for local people.

From BBC

Related Words

• appalling
• awful
• calamitous
• cataclysmic
• deadly
• deplorable
• destructive
• dire
• disastrous
• dreadful
• fatal
• fateful
• grievous
• grim
• harrowing
• heartbreaking
• miserable
• painful
• pathetic
• pitiful