love

Meanings

Noun

• Strong affection.
• A person who is the object of romantic feelings; a darling, a sweetheart, a beloved.
• A thing, activity etc which is the object of one's deep liking or enthusiasm.
• Sexual desire; attachment based on sexual attraction.
• Sexual activity.
• An instance or episode of being in love; a love affair.
• A thin silk material.
• A climbing plant, Clematis vitalba.
• Zero, no score.
• Nothing; no recompense.

Verb

• To have a strong affection for (someone or something).
• To need, thrive on.
• To be strongly inclined towards something; an emphatic form of like.
• To care deeply about, to be dedicated to (someone or something).
• To derive delight from a fact or situation.
• To have sex with (perhaps from make love).
• To praise; commend.
• To praise as of value; prize; set a price on.

Related

Similar words

• romance

Opposite words

• hate, hatred, angst; malice, spite
• indifference
• hate, despise

Origin

• From Middle English love, luve, from Old English lufu, from Proto-West Germanic *lubu, from Proto-Germanic *lubō, from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ-.
• The closing-of-a-letter sense is presumably a truncation of With love or the like.
• The verb is from Middle English loven, luvien, from Old English lufian, from Proto-West Germanic *lubōn, derived from the noun.
• Eclipsed non-native English amour, borrowed from French amour.
• From Middle English loven, lovien, from Old English lofian, from Proto-Germanic *lubōną, from *lubą, from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ-, *lewbʰ-.
• Said by some to be from the idea that when one does a thing “for love”, that is for no monetary gain, the word “love” implies "nothing". The previously held belief that it originated from the French term œuf, due to its shape, is no longer widely accepted, though compare the use of duck (reputed to be short for duck's egg) for a zero score at cricket.