Forms: see SWEET a. and HEART sb.
1. (Properly two words: see HEART sb. 14.) A term of endearment = darling: used chiefly in the vocative.
c. 1290. St. Kenelm, 140, in S. Eng. Leg., 349. Alas … þat ich scholde … a-bide Þat mi child, mi swete heorte, swych cas schal bi-tide.
c. 1325. Orfeo, 100. Swete hert, he sayde, how may this be?
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, III. 1183. For-yeue it me myn owene swete herte. [Cf. 1820 Troylus … Is with Criseyde his owne herte swete.]
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., xvi. (Percy Soc.), 65. Alas! fayre lady, and myne owne swete herte.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., V. ii. 221. Curtsie sweet hearts, and so the Measure ends.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, Wks. 1905, III. 108. So hath he his Barnabe and Anthony for his minions and sweet-harts.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, II. iii. 285. Ros. Vndone, and forfeited to cares for euer. Par. What’s the matter sweet-heart?
1613. Middleton, Triumphs Truth, Wks. (Bullen), VII. 241. O welcome, my triumphant lord, My glory’s sweetheart!
1648–9. in Eikon Bas. (1649), App. 274. The King taking the Duke of Glocester upon His Knee, said, Sweet-heart now they will cut off thy Fathers Head.
1679. Tryals Robt. Green, etc. 65. My Husband … called to me, prithee, sweetheart, what hast thou got for my Supper?
1727. Mrs. Delany, in Life & Corr. (1861), I. 136. What interest I have, I shall be very willing to make use of for my sweetheart’s service, but nothing can be done till he is sent to school to Westminster.
1845. G. P. R. James, Arrah Neil, i. A gay cavalier … pulled up … and seeing the girl he exclaimed,… ‘Which is the way to Bishop’s Merton, sweetheart?’
1859. Tennyson, Grandmother, xiii. Sweetheart, I love you so well that your good name is mine.
1890. Hall Caine, Bondman, III. vi. ‘Ot’s the name of your ’ickle boy?’ ‘Ah, I’ve got none, sweetheart.’
† 2. One who is loved illicitly; a paramour. Obs.
1589. [? Lyly], Pappe w. Hatchet, Wks. 1902, III. 399. Ye like not a Bishops rochet, when all your fathers hankerchers were made of his sweete harts smocke.
1610. Holland, Camden’s Brit. (1637), 379. Edith his wife, who … had been one of King Henrie the First his sweet hearts and lig-bies.
1696. Aubrey, Misc., Appar. (1784), 107. A gentlewoman, a handsome woman, but common, who was Mr. Mohun’s sweet heart.
1796. Grose’s Dict. Vulgar T. (ed. 3), Sweet Heart,… a girl’s lover, or a man’s mistress.
3. A person with whom one is in love.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 309. One hanges himselfe under his sweetehartes windowe with a twyned haulter.
c. 1597. Breton, Figure of Foure, II. § 89. Foure creatures goe willingly to their businesse: a Bride to Church, a boy to breckfast, an heire to his land, and a sweet-heart to his loue.
1600. Holland, Livy, XXVI. 623. Your sweet-heart and best beloved [orig. sponsa] I have entertained, as well,… as she should have bene with your father and mother in law.
1711. Budgell, Spect., No. 161, ¶ 3. Her Sweet-heart, a Person of small Stature.
1782. Jrnl. Yng. Lady of Virginia (1871), 38. Miss Nancy’s sweetheart came to-day.
1802. in Nairne Peerage Evidence (1874), 165. I shall be well pleased to hear from M. Serre the sweet heart of Sussanne all that concerns them.
1855. Dickens, Dorrit, II. xxiii. Your old sweetheart an’t far off, and she’s a blabber.
1863. Reade, Hard Cash, li. The prejudiced statements of friends and sweethearts, who always swear from the heart rather than from the head and the conscience.
4. colloq. and dial. in various transf. senses.
a. A sugar cake in the shape of a heart; a jam tart. b. Applied to the burs or thorny seeds or sprays that attach themselves to a person’s clothes; also, a plant bearing these, as species of Desmodium. c. A tame rabbit.
1732. Swift, Exam. Abuses Dublin, Wks. 1735, IV. 321. There is another Cry…, and it is that of Sweet-hearts [Note, A Sort of Sugar-Cakes in the Shape of Hearts].
1750. G. Hughes, Barbados, 213. Sweet Heart. The pod is intirely incrusted with small setæ or hooked bristles, by which means they tenaciously stick to the cloaths of those who walk among them.
1840. Blaine, Encycl. Rur. Sports, § 2683. Four kinds of rabbits are acknowledged among dealers and fanciers,—warreners, parkers, hedgehogs, and sweethearts…. Sweethearts are the tame varieties.
1877. N. W. Linc. Gloss., Sweetheart, a piece of thorn or briar which becomes attached to a woman’s dress and drags along after her.
1888. Sheffield Gloss., Sweetheart, a thin tart made by spreading a layer of jam between thin slices of paste.
1913. C. Pettman, Africanderisms, Sweethearts, the hooked seeds of Bidens pilosa.
Hence Sweetheartdom, Sweetheartship (nonce-wds.): see -DOM, -SHIP.
1887. Augusta Wilson, At Mercy of Tiberius, xiv. In the magical days of sweetheartdom, a silvery glorifying glamour wraps the world.
1896. Topeka State Jrnl., 10 Feb., 8/4. The home will survive, sweetheartship will survive, marriage will survive, motherhood will survive.
1898. Tit-Bits, 30 April, 85/1. The premature sweetheartship that existed between them.
