Heart (symbol)
Encyclopedia
The heart has long been used as a symbol
to refer to the spiritual
, emotion
al, moral
, and in the past, also intellectual core of a human being. As the heart
was once widely believed to be the seat of the human mind
, the word heart continues to be used poetically to refer to the soul
, and stylized depictions of hearts are used as prevalent symbols representing love
.
or as an organ genuinely believed to have spiritual or divine attributes.
In Egyptian mythology
, the heart portion of the soul was weighed in a balance against the feather
of Ma'at, symbolising truth
, in the judgment of the dead in the Egyptian Book of the Dead
. Egyptian sources do not actually reveal whether the heart had to be lighter than the feather for the deceased to pass into paradise—all depictions show only the weighing of the heart, not the actual results, heavier or lighter.
Similarly, in the Bible, this idea emerges in the earliest passages; Genesis 6:5 situates the thoughts of evil men in their hearts, and Exodus 5 through 12 speak repeatedly of the Lord "hardening Pharaoh
's heart." By this it is meant that God made Pharaoh resolve not to let the Israelite slaves leave Egypt, in order to bring judgment against Pharaoh and demonstrate his power: "'Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them'" (Exodus 10:1). In the Book of Jeremiah
17:9, it is written that the Lord is the judge who "tries" the human heart.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary
are traditional Roman Catholic devotion
al images.
philosophers and scientists, including Aristotle
, considered the heart the seat of thought
, reason
or emotion
, often rejecting the value of the brain.
The Stoics
taught that the heart was the seat of the soul
.
The Roman
physician Galen
located the seat of the passions in the liver
, the seat of reason in the brain, and considered the heart to be the seat of the emotion
s. While Galen's identification of the heart with emotion were proposed as a part of his theory of the circulatory system
, the heart has continued to be used as a symbolic source of human emotions even after the rejection of such beliefs.
These themes were reiterated in the European Middle Ages
.
In European traditional art and folklore, the heart symbol is drawn in a stylized shape. This shape is typically coloured red, suggesting both blood and, in many cultures, passion and strong emotion. The hearts have constituted, since the 15th century, one of the red suits
in most playing card
decks. The shape is particularly associated with romantic love
; it is often seen on St. Valentine's Day cards
, candy
boxes, and similar popular culture
artifacts as a symbol of romantic love
.
What the traditional "heart shape" actually depicts is a matter of some controversy. It only vaguely resembles the human heart.
The seed of the silphium
plant, used in ancient times as an herbal contraceptive, has been suggested as the source of the heart symbol.
The heart symbol could also be considered to depict features of the human female body, such as the female's buttocks
, pubic mound
, or spread vulva
. The tantric symbol of the "Yoni
" is another example of a heart-shaped abstraction of a woman's vulva.
The heart symbol could also be derived from the shape made by swan
s' necks in a courting ritual, which resembles the heart shape.
Inverted heart symbols have been used in heraldry as stylized testicle
s (coglioni in Italian) as in the canting arms
of the Colleonis of Milan.
The heart symbol has been used in everything from the I Love New York
ad campaign to Mad Magazines cover image un-endorsing Barack Obama
.
The Oxford English Dictionary
revised its entry on the symbol, changing ♥ to heart, citing that it "may be the first English usage to develop via the medium of T-shirts and bumper-stickers."
for the heart is <3. In Unicode
several heart symbols are available:
And from the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs range associated with emoji
:
In Code page 437
, the original character set of the IBM PC, the value of 3 (hexadecimal 03) represents the heart symbol. This value is shared with the non-printing ETX
control character, which overrides the glyph in many contexts.
, which is an epicycloid
with one cusp
. Other curves, such as the implicit curve
(x2+y2−1)3−x2y3=0, may produce better approximations of the heart shape.
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
to refer to the spiritual
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
, emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
al, moral
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
, and in the past, also intellectual core of a human being. As the heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
was once widely believed to be the seat of the human mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
, the word heart continues to be used poetically to refer to the soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
, and stylized depictions of hearts are used as prevalent symbols representing love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
.
In mythology and religion
In religious texts the heart was historically ascribed much mystical significance, either as metaphorMetaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
or as an organ genuinely believed to have spiritual or divine attributes.
In Egyptian mythology
Egyptian mythology
Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature...
, the heart portion of the soul was weighed in a balance against the feather
Feather
Feathers are one of the epidermal growths that form the distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on birds and some non-avian theropod dinosaurs. They are considered the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates, and indeed a premier example of a complex evolutionary novelty. They...
of Ma'at, symbolising truth
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
, in the judgment of the dead in the Egyptian Book of the Dead
Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...
. Egyptian sources do not actually reveal whether the heart had to be lighter than the feather for the deceased to pass into paradise—all depictions show only the weighing of the heart, not the actual results, heavier or lighter.
Similarly, in the Bible, this idea emerges in the earliest passages; Genesis 6:5 situates the thoughts of evil men in their hearts, and Exodus 5 through 12 speak repeatedly of the Lord "hardening Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
's heart." By this it is meant that God made Pharaoh resolve not to let the Israelite slaves leave Egypt, in order to bring judgment against Pharaoh and demonstrate his power: "'Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them'" (Exodus 10:1). In the Book of Jeremiah
Book of Jeremiah
The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the book of Isaiah and preceding Ezekiel and the Book of the Twelve....
17:9, it is written that the Lord is the judge who "tries" the human heart.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Immaculate Heart of Mary
The Immaculate Heart of Mary originally The Sacred Heart of Mary is a devotional name used to refer to the interior life of Mary, her joys and sorrows, her virtues and hidden perfections, and, above all, her virginal love for God, her maternal love for her Son, Jesus, and her compassionate love for...
are traditional Roman Catholic devotion
Catholic devotions
A Roman Catholic devotion is a gift of oneself, or one's activities to God. It is a willingness and desire to dedicate oneself to serve God; either in terms of prayers or in terms of a set of pious acts such as the adoration of God or the veneration of the saints or the Virgin Mary.Roman Catholic...
al images.
In early science and philosophy
Many classicalClassical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
philosophers and scientists, including Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, considered the heart the seat of thought
Thought
"Thought" generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination...
, reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
or emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
, often rejecting the value of the brain.
The Stoics
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
taught that the heart was the seat of the soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
.
The Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
physician Galen
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...
located the seat of the passions in the liver
Liver
The liver is a vital organ present in vertebrates and some other animals. It has a wide range of functions, including detoxification, protein synthesis, and production of biochemicals necessary for digestion...
, the seat of reason in the brain, and considered the heart to be the seat of the emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
s. While Galen's identification of the heart with emotion were proposed as a part of his theory of the circulatory system
Circulatory system
The circulatory system is an organ system that passes nutrients , gases, hormones, blood cells, etc...
, the heart has continued to be used as a symbolic source of human emotions even after the rejection of such beliefs.
These themes were reiterated in the European Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
.
As an icon
Suit (cards)
In playing cards, a suit is one of several categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several symbols showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or in addition be indicated by the color printed on the card...
in most playing card
Playing card
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games...
decks. The shape is particularly associated with romantic love
Romantic love
Romance is the pleasurable feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's love, or one's deep emotional desires to connect with another person....
; it is often seen on St. Valentine's Day cards
Greeting card
A greeting card is an illustrated, folded card featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthdays, Christmas or other holidays, they are also sent to convey thanks or express other feeling. Greeting cards,...
, candy
Candy
Candy, specifically sugar candy, is a confection made from a concentrated solution of sugar in water, to which flavorings and colorants are added...
boxes, and similar popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
artifacts as a symbol of romantic love
Romantic love
Romance is the pleasurable feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's love, or one's deep emotional desires to connect with another person....
.
What the traditional "heart shape" actually depicts is a matter of some controversy. It only vaguely resembles the human heart.
The seed of the silphium
Silphium
Silphium was a plant that was used in classical antiquity as a rich seasoning and as a medicine. It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant...
plant, used in ancient times as an herbal contraceptive, has been suggested as the source of the heart symbol.
The heart symbol could also be considered to depict features of the human female body, such as the female's buttocks
Buttocks
The buttocks are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to...
, pubic mound
Mons pubis
In human anatomy or in mammals in general, the mons pubis , also known as the mons veneris or simply the mons, is the adipose tissue lying above the pubic bone of adult females, anterior to the pubic symphysis...
, or spread vulva
Vulva
The vulva consists of the external genital organs of the female mammal. This article deals with the vulva of the human being, although the structures are similar for other mammals....
. The tantric symbol of the "Yoni
Yoni
Yoni is the Sanskrit word for the vagina. Its counterpart is the lingam as interpreted by some, the phallus.It is also the divine passage, womb or sacred temple...
" is another example of a heart-shaped abstraction of a woman's vulva.
The heart symbol could also be derived from the shape made by swan
Swan
Swans, genus Cygnus, are birds of the family Anatidae, which also includes geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae...
s' necks in a courting ritual, which resembles the heart shape.
Inverted heart symbols have been used in heraldry as stylized testicle
Testicle
The testicle is the male gonad in animals. Like the ovaries to which they are homologous, testes are components of both the reproductive system and the endocrine system...
s (coglioni in Italian) as in the canting arms
Canting arms
Canting arms are heraldic bearings that represent the bearer's name in a visual pun or rebus. The term cant came into the English language from Anglo-Norman cant, meaning song or singing, from Latin cantāre, and English cognates include canticle, chant, accent, incantation and recant.Canting arms –...
of the Colleonis of Milan.
The heart symbol has been used in everything from the I Love New York
I Love New York
I Love New York is both a logo and a song that are the basis of an advertising campaign and have been used since the mid-1970s to promote tourism in New York City, and later to promote New York State as well. The trademarked logo appears in souvenir shops and brochures throughout the state, some...
ad campaign to Mad Magazines cover image un-endorsing Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
.
The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
revised its entry on the symbol, changing ♥ to heart, citing that it "may be the first English usage to develop via the medium of T-shirts and bumper-stickers."
Computer code
A common emoticonEmoticon
An emoticon is a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood. Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. The word is a portmanteau word...
for the heart is <3. In Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
several heart symbols are available:
| Glyph | Description | HTML HTML HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages.... code |
Alt codes |
|---|---|---|---|
| U+2661 WHITE HEART SUIT | ♡ or ♡ |
||
| ♥ | U+2665 BLACK HEART SUIT | ♥ or ♥ or ♥ |
Alt + 3 |
| U+2764 HEAVY BLACK HEART | ❤ |
||
| U+2765 ROTATED HEAVY BLACK HEART BULLET | ❥ |
||
| U+2763 HEAVY HEART EXCLAMATION MARK ORNAMENT | ❣ |
And from the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs range associated with emoji
Emoji
is the Japanese term for the picture characters or emoticons used in Japanese electronic messages and webpages. Originally meaning pictograph, the word literally means e "picture" + moji "letter". The characters are used much like emoticons elsewhere, but a wider range is provided, and the icons...
:
| Glyph | Description | HTML HTML HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages.... code |
Alt codes |
|---|---|---|---|
| U+1F491 COUPLE WITH HEART | 💑 |
||
| U+1F493 BEATING HEART | 💓 |
||
| U+1F494 BROKEN HEART | 💔 |
||
| U+1F495 TWO HEARTS | 💕 |
||
| U+1F496 SPARKLING HEART | 💖 |
||
| U+1F497 GROWING HEART | 💗 |
||
| U+1F498 HEART WITH ARROW | 💘 |
||
| U+1F499 BLUE HEART | 💙 |
||
| U+1F49A GREEN HEART | 💚 |
||
| U+1F49B YELLOW HEART | 💛 |
||
| U+1F49C PURPLE HEART | 💜 |
In Code page 437
Code page 437
IBM PC or MS-DOS code page 437 is the character set of the original IBM PC. It is also known as CP 437, OEM 437, PC-8, MS-DOS Latin US or sometimes misleadingly referred to as the OEM font, High ASCII or Extended ASCII....
, the original character set of the IBM PC, the value of 3 (hexadecimal 03) represents the heart symbol. This value is shared with the non-printing ETX
End-of-text character
The End Of Text character is an ASCII control character used to inform the receiving computer that the end of the data stream has been reached. This may or may not be an indication that all of the data has been received....
control character, which overrides the glyph in many contexts.
Mathematical description
There are several mathematical descriptions that result in approximately heart-shaped curves. The best-known of these is the cardioidCardioid
A cardioid is a plane curve traced by a point on the perimeter of a circle that is rolling around a fixed circle of the same radius. It is therefore a type of limaçon and can also be defined as an epicycloid having a single cusp...
, which is an epicycloid
Epicycloid
In geometry, an epicycloid is a plane curve produced by tracing the path of a chosen point of a circle — called an epicycle — which rolls without slipping around a fixed circle...
with one cusp
Cusp (singularity)
In the mathematical theory of singularities a cusp is a type of singular point of a curve. Cusps are local singularities in that they are not formed by self intersection points of the curve....
. Other curves, such as the implicit curve
Level set
In mathematics, a level set of a real-valued function f of n variables is a set of the formthat is, a set where the function takes on a given constant value c....
(x2+y2−1)3−x2y3=0, may produce better approximations of the heart shape.
External links
- The Heart Symbol - Origin, History And Significance by Prof. Armin Dietz