at heart

1. 1.

   in reality

   “she is very kind at heart”

   Synonymsat bottomdeep downinsidein spite of appearance

Questions about at heart

What does at heart mean?

at heart means "in reality".

What is another word for at heart?

Close synonyms include at bottom, deep down, inside, in spite of appearance. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is at heart a common word?

at heart is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.