Word.ws English Dictionary

play on someone's heartstrings

play on someone's heartstrings verb: to produce a strong emotional effect on someone, especially of compassion, love or sadness.

Verb

play on someone's heartstrings (third-person singular simple present plays on someone's heartstrings, present participle playing on someone's heartstrings, simple past and past participle played on someone's heartstrings)

  1. (idiomatic) To produce a strong emotional effect on someone, especially of compassion, love or sadness.
    • I love you more each day
      I love the music you play on my heartstrings
      I feel you in every way
      Reach for touch, you play on my heartstrings1986, “Heartstrings”, performed by Berlin
    • “Why can't you just tell me? You're my only friend.”
      My words play on her heartstrings like I hoped they would, because her features soften.2015, K Webster, Becoming Her Series

Synonyms of play on someone's heartstrings

Forms of play on someone's heartstrings

third-person singular presentplays on someone's heartstrings
present participleplaying on someone's heartstrings
past participleplayed on someone's heartstrings
pastplayed on someone's heartstrings

Questions about play on someone's heartstrings

What does play on someone's heartstrings mean?
Play on someone's heartstrings means to produce a strong emotional effect on someone, especially of compassion, love or sadness.
What part of speech is play on someone's heartstrings?
Play on someone's heartstrings is a verb.
What is the past tense of play on someone's heartstrings?
The past tense of play on someone's heartstrings is played on someone's heartstrings.

Words near play on someone's heartstrings in the dictionary

  1. play off
  2. play Old Gooseberry
  3. play Old Harry
  4. play Old Harry with
  5. play on
  6. play on someone's heartstrings
  7. play on words
  8. play one against another
  9. play one's cards right
  10. play one's cards well
  11. play one's guts out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play on someone's heartstrings (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:

Cite this entry: “play on someone's heartstrings.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play_on_someone%27s_heartstrings. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.