strike a chord

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Definition

Phrasal Verb: 1. To evoke a strong feeling of recognition, sympathy, or shared experience: To cause someone to feel an emotional connection because something is personally relevant, familiar, or deeply felt. 2. To be relevant or meaningful to someone: To resonate with a person's own thoughts, feelings, or experiences.

Usage and Examples

The phrase is used to describe when an idea, piece of art, story, or statement powerfully connects with someone's personal emotions or memories.

Advanced Usage and Nuances
  • The phrase often implies the reaction is positive, sympathetic, or empathetic, but it can also refer to creating a strong negative emotional response if the context is clear (e.g., ).
  • It can be modified with adjectives like deep, powerful, particular, or personal to specify the nature or intensity of the connection.
    • The documentary struck a particular chord with environmental activists.
Variants and Related Phrases
  • Strike the right chord: To successfully create the desired emotional response or connection. This variant emphasizes achieving a specific, often positive, effect.
    • The marketing campaign struck the right chord with its target demographic.
  • Touch a chord: A direct synonym with identical meaning and usage.
    • His story of failure and redemption touched a chord in everyone who heard it.
Synonyms
  • Resonate (with): To evoke a shared feeling or belief.
  • Hit home: To be fully understood or to have a strong emotional impact, often related to a truthful or painful statement.
  • Ring true: To seem genuine and believable, often creating a sense of recognition.
Notes on Meaning

While strike a chord and hit home are related, they have subtle differences: * Strike a chord emphasizes creating an emotional connection based on shared experience or familiarity. * Hit home emphasizes a moment of powerful understanding or the impactful truth of a statement, often with a sense of being personally affected or convinced.

Verb
  1. evoke a reaction, response, or emotion
    • this writer strikes a chord with young women
    • The storyteller touched a chord
  2. refer to or be relevant or familiar to
    • I hope this message hits home!
  3. create an emotional response
    • The music struck a chord with the listeners

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