French Synonyms.—Les plats à barbe (popular = large ears); les oches or loches (thieves’); les isgourdes (popular); des feuilles de chou (popular = cabbage leaves); des écoutes or éscoutes (popular = hearing cheats); des cliquettes (popular).
German Synonyms.—Horcher (= the listener); Linzer, Loser, (Viennese: also Losling, Leusling, Leisling, or Lauschling): Osen.
Heart. Next the heart, adv. phr. (old).—Fasting.
1592. Nashe, Pierce Penilesse [Grosart], ii., 37. You may command his hart out of his belly, to make you a rasher on the coales, if you will next your heart.
1633. Rowley, Match at Midnight, i. Made drunk next her heart.
[Other colloquial usages are at heart = in reality, truly, at bottom; for one’s heart = for one’s life; in one’s heart of hearts = in the inmost recesses of oneself; to break the heart of = (a) to cause great grief, or to kill by grief, and (b) to bring nearly to completion; to find in one’s heart = to be willing; to get or learn by heart = to commit to memory; to have at heart = to feel strongly about; to have in the heart = to design or to intend; to lay or take to heart = to be concerned or anxious about; to set the heart at rest = to tranquilize; to set the heart on = to be desirous of, to be fond of; to take heart of grace = to pluck up courage.]
Heart-and-dart, subs. (rhyming). A fart (q.v.).
Heartbreaker, subs. (old).—A pendant curl; a love-lock (q.v.). Fr., un crêvecœur.
1663. Butler, Hudibras, Pt. I., c. 1. Like Samson’s heartbreakers, it grew In time to make a nation rue.
1694. Ladies’ Dict. A crevecœur, by some called heartbreaker, is the curled lock at the nape of the neck, and generally there are two of them.