eat your heart out
eat your heart out (idiom)
/ˌiːt jɔːr ˈhɑːrt aʊt/
Meanings
- To boast or show off in a playful or teasing way.
- To make others feel jealous or envious of your success, possession, or achievement.
- (Older, rare) To suffer in silence from grief, longing, anger or deep emotional pain.
The phrase “eat your heart out” developed as a vivid bodily metaphor — originally expressing intense internal suffering or wasting (grief, longing, envy; rage) and later acquiring a taunting, boastful sense in which a speaker invites onlookers to feel jealous. Its imagery is longstanding, with the heart seen as the seat of emotion, and its modern English meanings crystallized during the early modern period.
Synonyms: boast; gloat; flaunt; outshine; envy; pine; anger.
Example Sentences
- After winning the trophy, he held it up with a grin and said, eat your heart out.
- She wore the designer gown at the party, thinking, eat your heart out, to her rivals.
- He spent years alone by the sea, eating his heart out over the love he had lost.
- I stood there watching her walk away, left to eat my heart out in silence as I realized she would never return.
Origin and History
Classical and Scriptural Precedents
Images of grief and anguish, described as though the heart were literally being consumed, can be found in much older works of literature. Classical epics and sacred texts often use this type of imagery to portray the depth of human sorrow and longing. These ancient and medieval expressions created the foundation of the metaphor, which English speakers later adapted into the familiar phrase “eat your heart out.”
Early English Evidence and Semantic Shift
By the sixteenth century the formula had entered English usage with senses that include “anger, pine, fret, or grieve.” By the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the idiom is recorded both in the sense of suffering inwardly and, in other contexts, as gloating or a taunt. This demonstrates the shift from private sorrow to the provocative, playful meaning still used today.
Earliest Printed Instance
The clearest early printed example appears in William Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing (written c.1598–99; printed c.1600). In Beatrice’s furious speech she exclaims:
“I would eat his heart in the market-place.”
This shows the idiom was already established in vigorous figurative use at the turn of the seventeenth century, and that it was first employed in the strong sense of violent anger, envy, and vengeance.
Competing Transmission Theories
Several theories exist regarding how the metaphor entered and spread in English. Some scholars argue it developed directly from classical or biblical traditions, while others suggest influence from a Yiddish colloquialism meaning to pine or fret. Another view sees it as an independent development within English idiomatic speech. The historical record supports multiple influences rather than a single, definitive source.
Country of Origin
While the metaphorical idea is ancient, the idiomatic phrase “eat your heart out” in its taunting or envious sense is an English development. The earliest securely dated English texts that survive come from England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, though the imagery itself is far older.
Anger, Emotion, Feeling, Heart, Jealousy, Sad
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