harten

Harten is a Dutch word with several related meanings. In everyday language it is the plural of hart, the word for heart, so harten can refer to multiple hearts in anatomy or biology. For example, de harten pompen bloed means the hearts pump blood.

In the context of Dutch playing cards, harten is the name of the suit Hearts. The four suits used in standard Dutch decks are harten (hearts), ruiten (diamonds), klaveren (clubs), and schoppen (spades). The hearts suit is typically represented by red symbols and functions as a normal suit in many trick-taking games; players may be required to follow suit when hearts are led, and in some games hearts can be a trump suit.

Beyond common nouns, harten is also a Dutch surname. It is relatively uncommon but attested in Dutch-speaking regions.

Etymology and usage notes: hart, from which harten is derived, traces back to the Old Dutch word hart and is related to the English word heart. The plural form harten is created with the standard Dutch pluralization suffix -en. In card-playing contexts, the term is used in the plural form to denote the hearts suit as a category, as in de harten.