different between heart vs key

English

Alternative forms

• hart, harte, hearte (all obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English herte, from Old English heorte (“heart”), from Proto-West Germanic *hert?, from Proto-Germanic *hertô (“heart”), from Proto-Indo-European *??r (“heart”). Doublet of cardia.

Most of the modern figurative senses (such as passion or compassion, spirit, inmost feelings, especially love, affection, and courage) were present in Old English. However, the meaning “center” dates from the early 14th century.

The verb sense “to love” is from the 1977 I ? NY advertising campaign.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /h??t/
• (General American) enPR: härt, IPA^(key): /h??t/
• Rhymes: -??(?)t
• Homophone: hart

Noun

heart (countable and uncountable, plural hearts)

1. (anatomy) A muscular organ that pumps blood through the body, traditionally thought to be the seat of emotion.
2. (uncountable) Emotions, kindness, moral effort, or spirit in general.
   • 2008, "Rights trampled in rush to deport immigrant workers," Quaker Action (magazine), vol. 89, no. 3, page 8:

     "We provided a lot of brains and a lot of heart to the response when it was needed," says Sandra Sanchez, director of AFSC's Immigrants' Voice Program in Des Moines.

   • Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. (Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943)
3. The seat of the affections or sensibilities, collectively or separately, as love, hate, joy, grief, courage, etc.; rarely, the seat of the understanding or will; usually in a good sense; personality.

4. Courage; courageous purpose; spirit.

   Synonyms: bravery, nerve; see also Thesaurus:courage

   • c. 1679, William Temple, Essay

     The expelled nations take heart, and when they fled from one country, invaded another.

5. Vigorous and efficient activity; power of fertile production; condition of the soil, whether good or bad.
6. (archaic) A term of affectionate or kindly and familiar address.

   Synonyms: honey, sugar; see also Thesaurus:sweetheart

   • c. 1596-99, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act V scene v^[4]:

     My King, my Jove, I speak to thee, my heart!

   • c. 1610-11, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I scene ii^[5]:

     Awake, dear heart, awake. Thou hast slept well.
     Awake.

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, pp. 9–10:

     Certain unscrupulous men may call upon you here in your dressing-room. They will lavish you with flowers, with compliments, with phials of Hungary water and methuselahs of the costliest champagne. You must be wary of such men, my hearts, they are not to be trusted.

7. Personality, disposition.

8. (figuratively) A wight or being.
   • c. 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act II scene i^[6]:

     […] I would outstare the sternest eyes that look, / Outbrave the heart most daring on earth, / Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear, / Yea, mock the lion when he roars for prey, […]

9. A conventional shape or symbol used to represent the heart, love, or emotion: ? or sometimes <3.
10. A playing card of the suit hearts featuring one or more heart-shaped symbols.
11. (cartomancy) The twenty-fourth Lenormand card.
12. (figuratively) The centre, essence, or core.

    Synonyms: crux, gist; see also Thesaurus:gist

Derived terms

Descendants

Translations

See heart/translations § Noun.

Verb

heart (third-person singular simple present hearts, present participle hearting, simple past and past participle hearted)

1. (transitive, humorous, informal) To be fond of. Often bracketed or abbreviated with a heart symbol. [from late 20th c.]

   Synonyms: love, less than three

   • 2001 April 6, Michael Baldwin, "The Heart Has Its Reasons", Commonweal

     We're but the sum of all our terrors until we heart the dove.

   • 2006, Susan Reinhardt, Bulldog doesn't have to rely on the kindness of strangers to draw attention, Citizen-Times.com

     I guess at this point we were supposed to feel elated she'd come to her senses and decided she hearts dogs after all.

   • 2008 January 30, "Cheese in our time: Blur and Oasis to end feud with a Stilton", The Guardian (London)

     The further we delve into this "story", the more convinced we become of one thing: We heart the Goss.

   • 2008 July 25, "The Media Hearts Obama?", On The Media, National Public Radio
2. (transitive, obsolete) To give heart to; to hearten; to encourage.
3. (transitive, masonry) To fill an interior with rubble, as a wall or a breakwater.
4. (intransitive, agriculture, botany) To form a dense cluster of leaves, a heart, especially of lettuce or cabbage.

References

Further reading

• heart on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Earth, Erath, Harte, Herat, Herta, Taher, Terah, Thera, earth, hater, rathe, rehat, th'are, thare

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: k?, IPA^(key): /ki?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ki/
• IPA^(key): [?k??i?]
• Rhymes: -i?
• Homophones: cay, quay

Etymology 1

From Middle English keye, kaye, kei?e, from Old English c??, c??e, c?ga (“key, solution, experiment”) (whence also Scots key and kay (“key”)), of uncertain origin. Related to Old English c?ggian (“to lock, shut”). The only sure cognates are Saterland Frisian Koai (“key”), West Frisian kaai (“key”), and North Frisian kay (“key”). Possibly from Proto-Germanic *k?gaz, *k?guz (“stake, post, pole”), from Proto-Indo-European *?og?-, *?eg?-, *?eg?n- (“branch, stake, bush”), which would make it cognate with Middle Low German k?k (“whipping post, pillory”), and perhaps to Middle Dutch keige (“javelin, spear”) and Middle Low German keie, keige (“spear”). For the semantic development, note that medieval keys were simply long poles (ending in a hook) with which a crossbar obstructing a door from the inside could be removed from the outside, by lifting it through a hole in the door. Liberman has noted, however, "The original meaning of *kaig-jo- was presumably '*pin with a twisted end.' Words with the root *kai- followed by a consonant meaning 'crooked, bent; twisted' are common only in the North Germanic languages."

Noun

key (plural keys)

1. An object designed to open and close a lock.
2. An object designed to fit between two other objects (such as a shaft and a wheel) in a mechanism and maintain their relative orientation.
3. A crucial step or requirement.

   • Those who are accustomed to reason have got the true key of books.

   • who keeps the keys of all the creeds

4. A guide explaining the symbols or terminology of a map or chart; a legend.

5. A guide to the correct answers of a worksheet or test.

6. (computing) One of several small, usually square buttons on a typewriter or computer keyboard, mostly corresponding to text characters.

7. (music)
   1. In musical instruments, one of the valve levers used to select notes, such as a lever opening a hole on a woodwind.
   2. In instruments with a keyboard such as an organ or piano, one of the levers, or especially the exposed front end of it, which are depressed to cause a particular sound or note to be produced.
8. (music)
   1. The lowest note of a scale; keynote.
   2. In musical theory, the total melodic and harmonic relations, which exist between the tones of an ideal scale, major or minor; tonality.
   3. In musical theory and notation, the tonality centering in a given tone, or the several tones taken collectively, of a given scale, major or minor.
   4. In musical notation, a sign at the head of a staff indicating the musical key.
   • 1881, R.L. Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:

     A girl, it is true, has always lived in a glass house among reproving relatives, whose word was law; she has been bred up to sacrifice her judgments and take the key submissively from dear papa; and it is wonderful how swiftly she can change her tune into the husband's.

9. (figuratively) The general pitch or tone of a sentence or utterance.
   • ?, William Cowper, Conversation

     You fall at once into a lower key.

10. (advertising) A modification of an advertisement so as to target a particular group or demographic.
    • 1998, Mail Order Success Secrets

      Another popular way to key ads and mailings is to use a suite number, room number, department number, desk number, etc. as part of the ordering address. With a classified ad, using such a key may increase your ad cost.

11. (botany) An indehiscent, one-seeded fruit furnished with a wing, such as the fruit of the ash and maple; a samara.
12. (historical) A manual electrical switching device primarily used for the transmission of Morse code.
13. (cryptography) A piece of information (e.g. a passphrase) used to encode or decode a message or messages.
14. (Internet) A password restricting access to an IRC channel.
    • 2000, "Robert Erdec", Re: Help; mIRC32; unable to resolve server arnes.si (on newsgroup alt.irc.mirc)

      if you know someone who is in the channel, you can query them and ask for the key.

15. (databases) In a relational database, a field used as an index into another table (not necessarily unique).
16. (computing) A value that uniquely identifies an entry in a container.
17. (basketball) The free-throw lane together with the circle surrounding the free-throw line, the free-throw lane having formerly been narrower, giving the area the shape of a skeleton key hole.

18. (biology) A series of logically organized groups of discriminating information which aims to allow the user to correctly identify a taxon.
19. (architecture) A piece of wood used as a wedge.
20. (architecture) The last board of a floor when laid down.
21. (masonry) A keystone.
22. That part of the plastering which is forced through between the laths and holds the rest in place.
23. (rail transport) A wooden support for a rail on the bullhead rail system.
24. The degree of roughness, or retention ability of a surface to have applied a liquid such as paint, or glue.

25. (cartomancy) The thirty-third card of the Lenormand deck.
26. (print and film) The black ink layer, especially in relation to the three color layers of cyan, magenta, and yellow. See also CMYK.
27. (computer graphics, television) A color to be masked or made transparent.
    • 2004, Mark Schmidt, ?Simon Robinson, Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003 Developer's Cookbook (page 195)

      You can easily create this type of user interface by creating a bitmap with certain portions set to a predefined color you want to use as the transparency key.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• clef
• scale
• key on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Key in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Adjective

key (comparative more key, superlative most key)

1. Indispensable, supremely important.

   He is the key player on his soccer team.

   • 2007, Mark H. Moss, Shopping as an Entertainment Experience (page 46)

     Lukas intimates that one of Disney's key attractions was "Main Street USA,” which "mimicked a downtown business district just as Southdale" had done.
2. Important, salient.

   She makes several key points.

Translations

Verb

key (third-person singular simple present keys, present participle keying, simple past and past participle keyed)

1. To fit (a lock) with a key.
2. To fit (pieces of a mechanical assembly) with a key to maintain the orientation between them.
3. To mark or indicate with a symbol indicating membership in a class.
   • 1996 January, Garden Dsign Ideas, second printing, Taunton Press, ?ISBN, page 25,

     So I worked on a tissue-paper copy of the perimeter plan, outlining groupings of plants of the same species and keying them with letters for the species.

   • 2001, Bruce M. Metzger, The Bible in Translation, ?ISBN, page 87,

     The volume closes with thirty pages of "Notes, critical and explanatory," in which Thomson provides seventy-six longer or shorter notes keyed to specific sections of the synopsis.

   • 2002, Karen Bromley, Stretching Students' Vocabulary, ?ISBN, page 12,

     Talk about similarities between the words and write them below to the left of the anchor, keying them with a plus sign (+). Talk about the characteristics that set the words apart and list them below the box to the right, keying them with a tilde sign (~).

   • 2007, Stephen Blake Mettee, Michelle Doland, and Doris Hall, compilers, The American Directory of Writer's Guidelines, 6th ("2007–2008") edition, ?ISBN, page 757,

     Indicate the comparative value of each heading by keying it with a number in pencil, in the left margin, as follows: […]

4. (telegraphy and radio telegraphy) To depress (a telegraph key).
5. (radio) To operate (the transmitter switch of a two-way radio).
6. (computing) (more usually to key in) To enter (information) by typing on a keyboard or keypad.

   Our instructor told us to key in our user IDs.

7. (colloquial) To vandalize (a car, etc.) by scratching with an implement such as a key.

   He keyed the car that had taken his parking spot.

8. To link (as one might do with a key or legend).
   • 1960, Richard L. Masland, "Classification of the Epilepsies", in Epilepsia, volume 1, page 516,

     The American Heart Association has prepared their own guide to classification and, keying it with the Standard Nomenclature of Diseases, have done much to encourage a concise yet complete diagnosis.
9. (intransitive, biology, chiefly taxonomy) To be identified as a certain taxon when using a key.
10. (advertising, transitive) To modify (an advertisement) so as to target a particular group or demographic.
    • 1936, John Freeman Pyle, Marketing Principles, Organization and Policies (page 711)

      Keying advertisements and counting the number of inquiries received or the number of coupons returned to indicate the "pulling power" of a particular piece of copy or the coverage of a particular advertising medium.

    • 1998, Mail Order Success Secrets

      Another popular way to key ads and mailings is to use a suite number, room number, department number, desk number, etc. as part of the ordering address. With a classified ad, using such a key may increase your ad cost. Why? Because you're using an extra word or two to key the ad.

11. To attune to; to set at; to pitch.
12. To fasten or secure firmly; to fasten or tighten with keys or wedges.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis to this entry?)

Derived terms

• key in
• key off
• key out
• keyed up

Translations

References

Etymology 2

Variant of cay, from Spanish cayo, from Taíno cayo (“small island”)

Alternative forms

• cay

Noun

key (plural keys)

1. One of a string of small islands.

   the Florida Keys

Derived terms

• Florida Keys
• Key West

Translations

Etymology 3

Noun

key (plural keys)

1. Alternative form of quay.

Etymology 4

Abbreviating kilogram, via kilo.

Noun

key (plural keys)

1. (slang) Clipping of kilogram (especially of a recreational drug)

   Synonym: kay

   • 2010, David J. Silas, Da Block (page 41)

     So starting with ten keys of cocaine and two keys of heroin, Derrick put his plan in motion. Soon every major drug dealer and gang chief from Chicago Avenue to Evanston was in his pocket.

Anagrams

• Kye, kye

Central Kurdish

Adverb

key (key)

1. when

Manx

Etymology 1

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

key m (genitive singular [please provide], plural [please provide])

1. cream

Derived terms

• key blinkit
• key feayr
• key riojey, key riojit

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

key m (genitive singular keyee)

1. (nautical) quay

Mutation