heart-rending 
adjective
Causing great sadness or distress: a heart-rending story...
- At the moment of judgement, some displayed surprise, some anger, others a heart-rending sadness.
- Their stories are heart-rending and I am glad we are able to offer them the chance of safety and a better life.
- The storyline of the opera focuses on the heart-rending love story between the poet Rodolfo and the seamstress Mimi, a fragile but resolute girl.
Synonyms
distressing, upsetting, disturbing, heartbreaking, sad, tragic, painful, saddening, traumatic, agonizing, desolate, harrowing, excruciating;
pitiful, piteous, poignant, plaintive, affecting, moving, tear-jerking
rare distressful
Derivatives
heart-rendingly
- It was so again at Netherdale on Friday evening as, heart-rendingly, the Borders' hopes of proceeding in the Parker Pen Challenge Cup expired.
- Didn't I make you cry, with my heart-rendingly honest ‘confessional’ pieces?
- If she is cautious ascending to high C at the climax of the love duet, almost everything else she does is heart-rendingly truthful.
- wall rocket
- wall rue
- walls have ears
- wall space
- Wall Street
- Wall Street Crash
- Wall Streetish
- wall tent
- wall-to-wall
- wall unit
- wall walk
- wallwasher
- wally
- wallyball
- wally close
- wally dug
- wally grout
- walnut
- Walnut Creek
- walnut tree
- Walpole, Horace
- Walpole, Sir Hugh
- Walpole, Sir Robert
- Walpurgisnacht
- Walpurgis night