Word.ws English Dictionary

dark-hearted

dark-hearted adjective: malevolent; cold and cruel.

Adjective

dark-hearted (comparative more dark-hearted or darker-hearted, superlative most dark-hearted or darkest-hearted)

  1. Malevolent; cold and cruel.
    • And, at a feast, one of the darkest-hearted fellows, one of the very few who didn’t come to Church, got up and proposed they should throw off the Worship, as it was only bringing sickness and death among them, after all they had given up for it.1894, Maggie Whitecross Paton, “The Shipwreck and the Angel-Child”, in James Paton, editor, Letters and Sketches from the New Hebrides, London: Hodder and Stoughton […], →OCLC, page 163
    • “Your father is the darkest-hearted man of all,” he said tightly. “He preys on innocent, small children. Our Kickapoo children are revered! Never defiled! Your father will never defile children again!”1996, Cassie Edwards, chapter 4, in Wild Whispers, New York, N.Y.: Topaz, →ISBN, page 61
  2. (archaic) Unenlightened; ignorant of holy teachings.
    • His dying command makes in incumbent on his followers to offer the “unspeakable gift” alike at the door of cottage and palace, forecastle and cabin. Mountain top and vale— plain and ocean are to be made to rejoice in the “glad tidings of great joy.” How the dark-hearted of earth need its light.1853, Naval Journal - Volume 25, page 135
    • Poor, dark-hearted creatures! when will they learn to say with us those calm words of intense Christian comfort,1872, The Net, page 6
  3. Despondent.
    • I was not prosperous enough to become intoxicated, nor poor enough to grow moody and dark-hearted, nor sufficiently at ease in my circumstances to sit idle and invent sin.1862, Gerald Griffin, The Rivals: And Tracy's Ambition, page 205
    • Only a dark-hearted bit of humanity, praying into the dark ; but what must that " only " mean to the Christ who died for him ?1895, Amy Wilson-Carmichael, From Sunrise Land: Letters from Japan, page 33
  4. Bleak.
    • What is the latest word from the dark-hearted hills?1953, Frank Borden Hanes, The Bat Brothers, page 294
    • His work can mainly be divided into classical adaptations, usually with a dark heart, and apparently fluffy country-house comedies, often concerned with aristocrats and actresses, though these also tend to be dark-hearted and fundamentally, if not tragic, then at least elegantly sad about the human...2000, Ruth Leon, Sheridan Morley, A Century of Theatre, page 1941
  5. Having dark heartwood.
    • The wood is pale yellowish, often dark-hearted, close, dense, liable to split.1901, The Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, Volumes 16-17, page 226
  6. Having a dark center.
    • I seemed to look down on a parterre of mixed hyacinths, variegated tulips, and dark-hearted poppies, as I beheld them.1867, Catherine Ann Warfield, The Romance of Beauseincourt, page 126
    • The dark-hearted or dominants behaved in two different ways. Some of them remained true to their type, all their offspring being dark-hearted.1904, Hugo de Vries, Daniel Trembly MacDougal, Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation

Examples of dark-hearted in a sentence

  • We must not forget that Satan is predicted by God as being evil and dark-hearted.2012, Eathon Gums, Bridge over Troubled American Waters: Based on Race Division in America, →ISBN:
  • Born in Ipswich at the time of the great plague, I grew, if not straight in the eyes of my contemporaries, then at least I grew – dark-faced, dark-haired, dark-hearted with a slight cast in one eye.2012, Paul Doherty, A Brood of Vipers, →ISBN:
  • Perla Lowell's marriage was a painful sham, so now—penniless and alone —she refuses to let this dark-hearted Greek intimidate her.2014, Maya Blake, What the Greek Can't Resist, →ISBN:
  • The sad and dark-hearted women in the villages can see for themselves what the Sun of Righteousness can do, for was she not at one time one The Land of the Five Rivers.1912, Until the Shadows Flee Away:

Synonyms of dark-hearted

Forms of dark-hearted

comparativemore dark-hearted
comparativedarker-hearted
superlativemost dark-hearted
superlativedarkest-hearted
alternative formdarkhearted
alternative formdark hearted

Questions about dark-hearted

What does dark-hearted mean?
Dark-hearted means malevolent; cold and cruel.
How do you use dark-hearted in a sentence?
We must not forget that Satan is predicted by God as being evil and dark-hearted.
What part of speech is dark-hearted?
Dark-hearted is an adjective.

Words near dark-hearted in the dictionary

  1. dark-blue snakeweed
  2. dark-eyed
  3. dark-eyed junco
  4. dark-eyed juncos
  5. dark-haired
  6. dark-hearted
  7. dark-horse
  8. dark-lantern
  9. dark-lanterns
  10. dark-lanthorn
  11. dark-lanthorns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dark-hearted (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dark-hearted.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dark-hearted. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.