"tug at someone's heartstrings" meaning in English

See tug at someone's heartstrings in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: tugs at someone's heartstrings [present, singular, third-person], tugging at someone's heartstrings [participle, present], tugged at someone's heartstrings [participle, past], tugged at someone's heartstrings [past], tug at someone's heart strings [alternative]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} tug at someone's heartstrings (third-person singular simple present tugs at someone's heartstrings, present participle tugging at someone's heartstrings, simple past and past participle tugged at someone's heartstrings)
  1. Synonym of play on someone's heartstrings Synonyms: play on someone's heartstrings [synonym, synonym-of] Related terms: heart-tugging
    Sense id: en-tug_at_someone's_heartstrings-en-verb-5q7QoX8~ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tugs at someone's heartstrings",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tugging at someone's heartstrings",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tugged at someone's heartstrings",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tugged at someone's heartstrings",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tug at someone's heart strings",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "tug at someone's heartstrings (third-person singular simple present tugs at someone's heartstrings, present participle tugging at someone's heartstrings, simple past and past participle tugged at someone's heartstrings)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of play on someone's heartstrings"
      ],
      "id": "en-tug_at_someone's_heartstrings-en-verb-5q7QoX8~",
      "links": [
        [
          "play on someone's heartstrings",
          "play on someone's heartstrings#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "heart-tugging"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "play on someone's heartstrings"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "tug at someone's heartstrings"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tugs at someone's heartstrings",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tugging at someone's heartstrings",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tugged at someone's heartstrings",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tugged at someone's heartstrings",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tug at someone's heart strings",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "tug at someone's heartstrings (third-person singular simple present tugs at someone's heartstrings, present participle tugging at someone's heartstrings, simple past and past participle tugged at someone's heartstrings)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "heart-tugging"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of play on someone's heartstrings"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "play on someone's heartstrings",
          "play on someone's heartstrings#English"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "play on someone's heartstrings"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "tug at someone's heartstrings"
}

Download raw JSONL data for tug at someone's heartstrings meaning in English (1.2kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-05-20 using wiktextract (3dadd05 and f1c2b61). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.