heartrending

• heart-rending

heart +‎ rending

heartrending (comparative more heartrending, superlative most heartrending)

1. That causes great grief, anguish or distress.

   Synonym: heart-breaking

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 154:

     [T]he old man, who appeared to be an ardent fisherman, told me of the large trout he caught in the neighbourhood thirty years ago, when he came here from Gudbrandsdale, and made the most heartrending complaints of the decrease of fish and increase of saw-dust, just as Sir Humphry Davy makes in his Salmonia.

   • 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:

     It wavered an instant—then there was a heartrending crash—and the canary-coloured cart, their pride and their joy, lay on its side in the ditch, an irredeemable wreck.

2. That elicits deep sympathy.

   I am suddenly assaulted by the most heartrending puppy-dog eyes I've ever seen as Emi pouts.

   • 1908 June, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, published August 1909 (11th printing), →OCLC:

     Oh, Marilla, it was heartrending. Mr. Phillips made such a beautiful farewell speech beginning, ‘The time has come for us to part.’ It was very affecting. And he had tears in his eyes too, Marilla.

• “heart-rending”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.