heartsome

heartsome adjective: merry, cheery, pleasant, delightful, attractive.

Adjective

heartsome (comparative more heartsome, superlative most heartsome)

(archaic, dialectal, poetic) merry, cheery, pleasant, delightful, attractive.
- Methought an heav'nly heartsome thing
  Where dew like diamonds did hing,1597, Alexander Montgomery, The Cherrie and the Slae
- There thrust the bold straightforward horn To battle for that lady lorn; With heartsome voice of mellow scorn, Like any knight in knighthood's morn.1875, Various, Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15

The oak rose before me like a pillar of darkness; and overhead the heartsome stars were set in the face of the night.1907, Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes:
It was a great hour for him as he wheeled the barrow homeward, Elspeth once more by his side; but he could say nothing heartsome in Tommy's presence, and Tommy was as uncomfortable in his.1912, J.M. Barrie, Tommy and Grizel:
A rainbow is a heartsome thing, for it reminds us of a promise made long ago, and faithfully kept.1917, Nellie L. McClung, The Next of Kin:

From heart + -some.

What does heartsome mean?: Heartsome means merry, cheery, pleasant, delightful, attractive.
How do you use heartsome in a sentence?: The oak rose before me like a pillar of darkness; and overhead the heartsome stars were set in the face of the night.
What part of speech is heartsome?: Heartsome is an adjective.

Adapted from Wiktionary: heartsome (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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