🫱 “wear your heart on your sleeve”

What it means: To show your feelings openly instead of hiding them.

“He wears his heart on his sleeve, which is why his letters are worth keeping.”

Where it comes from

Common from the 1500s — Sidney and Shakespeare both use it. The tournament tale (knights tying a lady’s favour to a sleeve) is good colour, but the idiom likely comes from humours-on-display, not heraldry.

← keep your chin up · all the body idioms · get something off your chest →

play it by earturn a blind eyekeep your chin upget something off your chestpull someone’s leg

More phrases, including proverbs from dozens of languages, at Proverbs of the World.