Meanings
- Synonym of long absent, soon forgotten (“separation can result in someone finding other emotional attachments”)
Work if you must, but don't take a night job. Absence makes the heart go yonder.
2012, Sonny Bono, edited by Boze Hadleigh, Holy Matrimony!: Better Halves and Bitter Halves, page 1093 more examples
Does Absence Make the Heat Grow Fonder? Sometimes. And sometimes absence makes the heart go yonder.
1989, William J. Petersen, Husbands and Wives, page 199Absence makes the heart go yonder, sweetheart. Wherever he's at, that's where you need to be also.
2019, A'zayler, In Love with My EnemyThere is truth in the old adage "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," but it is also true that "Absence makes the heart go yonder." Intimacy with God cannot survive and grow without a sense of God's actual presence with His people in the here and now.
2019, Timothy L. Anderson, Into His Presence: A Theology of Intimacy with God, page 37Synonyms: long absent, soon forgotten
Synonyms & antonyms
proverbSynonym of long absent, soon forgotten (“separation can result in someone finding other emotional attachments”)
Origin
Cite this entry
absence makes the heart go yonder. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/absence%20makes%20the%20heart%20go%20yonder
“absence makes the heart go yonder.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/absence%20makes%20the%20heart%20go%20yonder. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “absence makes the heart go yonder,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/absence%20makes%20the%20heart%20go%20yonder.
Source: absence makes the heart go yonder on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.