rotten-hearted, a.
[f. rotten a. + heart n.]
Of a thoroughly corrupt nature or character.
| c 1386 Chaucer Pars. T. ¶689 Þis roten hertid synne of Accidie and of slouthe. 1620 Sanderson Serm. I. 136 A rotten-hearted hypocrite humbleth himself outwardly, but repenteth not truly. 1642–4 Vicars God in Mount (1844) 6 Perfidious and rotten-hearted Prelates. 1647 Clarendon Hist. Reb. iv. §111 The People..affronted such Lords as came near them,..calling them Rotten-hearted Lords. 1754 Hume Hist. Gt. Brit., Jas. I & Chas. I, I. 315 The cry continually resounded against bishops and rotten-hearted lords. 1788 Burns Let. to W. Cruikshank Dec., That puritanic, rotten-hearted, hell-commissioned scoundrel. 1840 Dickens Barn. Rudge lxvii, Abject things those rotten-hearted jails had made them. |