lonely-hearts

American  

[lohn-lee-hahrts] / ˈloʊn liˌhɑrts /

adjective

1. of or for people seeking counseling or companionship to bring love or romance into their lives.

   a lonely-hearts column in the newspaper.

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lonely hearts British  

adjective

1. (often capitals) of or for people who wish to meet a congenial companion or marriage partner

   a lonely hearts advertisement

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Etymology

Origin of lonely-hearts

First recorded in 1930–35; probably most closely associated with the novel Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West (1902?-40)

Example Sentences

“Love Fraud”: Veterans Rachel Grady and Ewing examine the depredations of a heartless lonely-hearts conman and the determination of the women who decide to take him on.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 23, 2020

Your story “Found Wanting,” which takes place in the early nineteen-nineties, is about a seventeen-year-old Glaswegian boy who has placed a lonely-hearts ad in a magazine.

From The New Yorker • Jan. 6, 2020

ISIS’s recruitment message promises an idyllic paradise promising inclusion for the excluded, romance for the lonely-hearts, and adventure and heroism for the picked-upon.

From Time • Aug. 3, 2016

In “She Loves Me,” Benanti plays one of two ever-quarreling employees of a perfume shop in a European city who later find out they’ve been writing lonely-hearts letters to each other.

From Washington Times • Jun. 29, 2016

Anyone who has been to Venice in peak summer recently will know that this rapturous lonely-hearts romance could hardly take place there today.

From The Guardian • Aug. 1, 2014