warm the cockles of one's heart

To cause a feeling of affectionate happiness: “The thought of his grandmother was enough to warm the cockles of his heart.”

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Idioms and Phrases

Gratify one, make one feel good, as in It warms the cockles of my heart to see them getting along so well . This expression uses a corruption of the Latin name for the heart's ventricles, cochleae cordis . [Second half of 1600s]

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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