♥♥♥♥ is an English-language profanity which often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested to around 1475. In modern usage, the term ♥♥♥♥ and its derivatives (such as ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥) are used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an interjection or an adverb. There are many common phrases that employ the word as well as compounds that incorporate it, such as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and ♥♥♥♥ off.

Offensiveness
It is unclear whether the word has always been considered a pejorative or, if not, when it first came to be used to describe (often in an extremely angry, hostile, or belligerent manner) unpleasant circumstances or people in an intentionally offensive way, such as in the term ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, one of its more common usages in some parts of the English-speaking world. Some English-speaking countries censor it on television and radio. Andrea Millwood Hargrave's 2000 study of the attitudes of the British public found that ♥♥♥♥ was considered the third-most-severe profanity, and its derivative ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ second. ♥♥♥♥ was considered the most severe.

Nevertheless, the word has increasingly become less of a pejorative and more publicly acceptable, an example of the "dysphemism treadmill" or semantic drift known as melioration, wherein former pejoratives become inoffensive and commonplace. Because of its increasing usage in the public forum, in 2005 the word was included for the first time as one of three vulgarities in The Canadian Press's Canadian Press Caps and Spelling guide. Journalists were advised to refrain from censoring the word but use it sparingly and only when its inclusion was essential to the story. According to linguist Pamela Hobbs, "notwithstanding its increasing public use, enduring cultural models that inform our beliefs about the nature of sexuality and sexual acts preserve its status as a vile utterance that continues to inspire moral outrage." Hobbs considers users rather than usage of the word and sub-divides users into "non-users", for whom "the word belongs to a set of taboo words, the very utterance of which constitutes an affront, and any use of the word, regardless of its form (verb, adjective, adverb, etc.) or meaning (literal or metaphorical) evokes the core sexual meanings and associated sexual imagery that motivate the taboo."; and "users", for whom "metaphorical uses of the word ♥♥♥♥ no more evoke images of sexual intercourse than a ten-year-old's 'My mom'll kill me if she finds out' evokes images of murder," so that the "criteria of taboo are missing.