wear your heart on your sleeve

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

to openly display one's emotions, feelings, and vulnerabilities without concealment or strategic disguise, making one's inner life visible to others in the way that an item attached to one's sleeve is visible to all; the idiom derives from the medieval tournament tradition in which a knight wore his lady's favour — a token of her affection — on his sleeve as a public declaration of devotion; in contemporary usage it describes people who express their emotions freely and transparently rather than managing and concealing their feelings in the socially controlled manner that professional and public contexts typically demand; wearing one's heart on one's sleeve is associated with authenticity, emotional courage, and vulnerability, but also with potential social risk, as openness about feelings can be exploited or met with discomfort