heart n
1. the locus of feelings and intuitions; "in your heart you know it is true"; "her story would melt your bosom" [syn: bosom]
2. the hollow muscular organ located behind the sternum and between the lungs; its rhythmic contractions pump blood through the body; "he stood still, his heart thumping wildly" [syn: pump, ticker]
3. the courage to carry on; "he kept fighting on pure spunk"; "you haven't got the heart for baseball" [syn: mettle, nerve, spunk]
4. an area that is approximately central within some larger region; "it is in the center of town"; "they ran forward into the heart of the struggle"; "they were in the eye of the storm" [syn: center, centre, middle, eye]
5. the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience; "the gist of the prosecutor's argument"; "the heart and soul of the Republican Party"; "the nub of the story" [syn: kernel, substance, core, center, essence, gist, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty]
6. an inclination or tendency of a certain kind; "he had a change of heart" [syn: spirit]
7. a plane figure with rounded sides curving inward at the top and intersecting at the bottom; conventionally used on playing cards and valentines; "he drew a heart and called it a valentine"
8. a firm rather dry variety meat (usually beef or veal); "a five-pound beef heart will serve six"
9. a positive feeling of liking; "he had trouble expressing the 220 catflap.bishopston.net dictd 1.11.2/rf on FreeBSD 8.1-STABLE <122911.12317.1287435900@catflap.bishopston.net> 220 catflap.bishopston.net dictd 1.11.2/rf on FreeBSD 8.1-STABLE <122912.12320.1287435900@catflap.bishopston.net>

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The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system (including all vertebrates), that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions. The term cardiac (as in cardiology) means "related to the heart" and comes from the Greek καρδιά, kardia, for "heart".

The vertebrate heart is composed of cardiac muscle, which is an involuntary striated muscle tissue found only in this organ, and connective tissue. The average human heart, beating at 72 beats per minute, will beat approximately 2.5 billion times during an average 66 year lifespan, and weighs approximately 250 to 300 grams (9 to 11 oz) in females and 300 to 350 grams (11 to 12 oz) in males.

In invertebrates that possess a circulatory system, the heart is typically a tube or small sac and pumps fluid that contains water and nutrients such as proteins, fats, and sugars. In insects, the "heart" is often called the dorsal tube and insect "blood" is almost always not oxygenated since they usually respirate (breathe) directly from their body surfaces (internal and external) to air. However, the hearts of some other arthropods (including spiders and crustaceans such as crabs and shrimp) and some other animals pump hemolymph, which contains the copper-based protein hemocyanin as an oxygen transporter similar to the iron-based hemoglobin in red blood cells found in vertebrates.

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