love

See also: Love, lové, lóve, løve, lóvé, and лове

EnglishEdit

English phrasebook

This entry is part of the phrasebook project, which presents criteria for inclusion based on utility, simplicity and commonality.

English Wikipedia has an article on:

love

Wikipedia

PronunciationEdit

(Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /lʌv/
Audio (RP)
(file)
Audio (GA)
(file)
(Northern England, Ireland) IPA^(key): /lʊv/
Rhymes: -ʌv

Etymology 1Edit

From Middle English love, luve, from Old English lufu, from Proto-Germanic *lubō, from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ- (“love, care, desire”).

The closing-of-a-letter sense is presumably a truncation of With love or the like.

The verb is from Middle English loven, lovien, from Old English lufian (“to love”), from the noun lufu (“love”), see above.

Eclipsed non-native English amour (“love”), borrowed from French amour (“love”).

NounEdit

Primates need love

love (countable and uncountable, plural loves)

(uncountable) Strong affection.
1. A profound and caring affection towards someone.
  A mother’s love is not easily shaken.
  
  My husband’s love is the most important thing in my life.
  - 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost:
    He on his side / Leaning half-raised, with looks of cordial love / Hung over her enamoured.
  - 2014, S. Hidden, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Mystical Perspectives on the Love of God (→ISBN)
2. Affectionate, benevolent concern or care for other people or beings, and for their well-being.
  - 1864, Utilitarianism Explained and Exemplified in Moral and Political Government:
    The love of your neighbor as yourself, is expressly given as the definition and test of Charity,—not alms-giving—and this love is [...] the highest of all the Divine commands[.]
3. A feeling of intense attraction towards someone.
  I have never been in love as much as I have with you.
  - 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 8, in The Celebrity:
    The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again; for, even after she had conquered her love for the Celebrity, the mortification of having been jilted by him remained.
4. A deep or abiding liking for something; an enthusiasm for something.
  My love of cricket knows no bounds.
  - 2012, Philip Auerswald, The Coming Prosperity (→ISBN):
    For three decades, the average number of miles driven by US motorists increased steadily. Then, in 2007, that steady climb was suddenly halted. [...] What magic caused Americans to temper their longstanding love of the open road?
(countable) A person who is the object of romantic feelings; a darling, a sweetheart, a beloved.
- 1595, Edmund Spenser, Epithalamion
  Open the temple gates unto my love.
- 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act III Scene 2
  O love, dispatch all business, and be gone!
- 1887, H. Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure‎^[1]:
  'Oh, my love, my love!' she murmured, 'wilt thou ever know how I have loved thee?' and she kissed him on the forehead, and then went and stood in the pathway of the flame of Life.
- 1969, The Dubliners, Dirty Old Town:
  I met my love by the gasworks wall.
(colloquial, Commonwealth of Nations) A term of friendly address, regardless of feelings.
Hello love, how can I help you?
A thing, activity, etc which is the object of one's deep liking or enthusiasm.
- 1997 March, "Faces of Today's Black Woman", in Ebony, volume 52, number 5, page 96:
  But it wasn't until [Theresa M. Claiborne] went to ROTC training camp at the University of California at Berkeley that she discovered that flying was her first love. "Pilots talk about getting bit by the flying bug," she says. "I thought, This is heaven."
(euphemistic) Sexual desire; attachment based on sexual attraction.
- 2013, Ronald Long, Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods, Routledge (→ISBN), page 3:
  The prospect that their cherished Greeks would have countenanced, much less honored, a love between men that expressed itself carnally, however, was not so easily assimilated.
(euphemistic) Sexual activity.
- 1986, Ben Elton & al., Blackadder II, "Bells":
  —What think you, my lord, of... love?
  
  —You mean ‘rumpy-pumpy’.
An instance or episode of being in love; a love affair.
- 2014, E. L. Todd, Then Came Absolution (→ISBN):
  Maybe it was just a summer love, something with no future.
Used as the closing, before the signature, of a letter, especially between good friends or family members, or by the young.
Alternative letter-case form of Love (“personification of love”).
- c. 1810,, Samuel Johnson (in The Works of Samuel Johnson):
  At busy hearts in vain love's arrows fly; [...]
(obsolete) A thin silk material.
- 1664, Robert Boyle, Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours, […]
  Such a kind of transparency, as that of a Sive, a piece of Cyprus, or a Love-Hood.
A climbing plant, Clematis vitalba.

SynonymsEdit

(darling, sweetheart): baby, darling, lover, pet, sweetheart, honey, love bird; see also Thesaurus:sweetheart
(term of address): mate, lover, darling, sweetie, sweetheart; see also Thesaurus:lover
(sexual desire): aphrodisia, carnality; see also Thesaurus:lust
(sexual activity): coitus, sex, the beast with two backs; see also Thesaurus:copulation
(instance of being in love): romance

AntonymsEdit

(strong affection): hate, hatred, angst; malice, spite
(absence of love): indifference

TranslationsEdit

See love/translations § Noun.

VerbEdit

love (third-person singular simple present loves, present participle loving, simple past and past participle loved)

(usually transitive, sometimes intransitive, stative) To have a strong affection for (someone or something).
- 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter VI
  I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her how I loved her, and had taken her hand from the rail and started to draw her toward me when Olson came blundering up on deck with his bedding.
- 2013 February 26, Pink and Nate Ruess, Just Give Me a Reason:
  Just give me a reason, / just a little bit's enough, / just a second we're not broken, just bent / and we can learn to love again.
I love my spouse. I love you!
(transitive) To need, thrive on.
Mold loves moist, dark places.
(transitive) To be strongly inclined towards something; an emphatic form of like.
I love walking barefoot on wet grass; I'd love to join the team; I love what you've done with your hair
- 1887, H. Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure‎^[2]:
  "I love not that underlings should perceive my wisdom."
(usually transitive, sometimes intransitive) To care deeply about, to be dedicated to (someone or something).
- John 3:16
  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
- Matthew: 22:37-38
  You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and your whole mind, and your whole soul; you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
- 2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 27:
  The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […] offering services that let you […] "share the things you love with the world" and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention.
(transitive) To derive delight from a fact or situation.
I love the fact that the coffee shop now offers fat-free chai latte.
(transitive, euphemistic) To have sex with (perhaps from make love).
I wish I could love her all night long.

ConjugationEdit

conjugation of love

infinitive			love
present participle			loving
past participle			loved
	simple		progressive		perfect		perfect progressive
present	I love	we love	I am loving	we are loving	I have loved	we have loved	I have been loving	we have been loving
	you love	you love	you are loving	you are loving	you have loved	you have loved	you have been loving	you have been loving
	he loves	they love	he is loving	they are loving	he has loved	they have loved	he has been loving	they have been loving

past	I loved	we loved	I was loving	we were loving	I had loved	we had loved	I had been loving	we had been loving
	you loved	you loved	you were loving	you were loving	you had loved	you had loved	you had been loving	you had been loving
	he loved	they loved	he was loving	they were loving	he had loved	they had loved	he had been loving	they had been loving

future	I will love	we will love	I will be loving	we will be loving	I will have loved	we will have loved	I will have been loving	we will have been loving
	you will love	you will love	you will be loving	you will be loving	you will have loved	you will have loved	you will have been loving	you will have been loving
	he will love	they will love	he will be loving	they will be loving	he will have loved	they will have loved	he will have been loving	they will have been loving

conditional	I would love	we would love	I would be loving	we would be loving	I would have loved	we would have loved	I would have been loving	we would have been loving
	you would love	you would love	you would be loving	you would be loving	you would have loved	you would have loved	you would have been loving	you would have been loving
	he would love	they would love	he would be loving	they would be loving	he would have loved	they would have loved	he would have been loving	they would have been loving

imperative	love

SynonymsEdit

(have a strong affection for): adore, cherish; see also Thesaurus:love
(have sexual intercourse with): enjoy, go to bed with, sleep with; see also Thesaurus:copulate with

AntonymsEdit

hate, despise

Derived termsEdit

Terms derived from the noun or verb love

Related termsEdit

TranslationsEdit

See love/translations § Verb.

Etymology 2Edit

From Middle English loven, lovien, from Old English lofian (“to praise, exalt, appraise, value”), from Proto-Germanic *lubōną (“to praise, vow”), from *lubą (“praise”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ- (“to like, love, desire”), *lewbʰ-.

VerbEdit

love (third-person singular simple present loves, present participle loving, simple past and past participle loved)

(transitive, obsolete or Britain dialectal) To praise; commend.
(transitive, obsolete or Britain dialectal) To praise as of value; prize; set a price on.

Etymology 3Edit

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 l’œuf (“the egg”), 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.

NounEdit

love (uncountable)

(racquet sports, billiards) Zero, no score.
So that’s fifteen-love to Kournikova.
- 2013, Paul McNamee, Game Changer: My Tennis Life
  The next day Agassi came back from two sets to love down to beat Courier in five sets.

TranslationsEdit

zero

Albanian: zero (sq)
Catalan: res (ca), zero (ca) m
Danish: nul (da)
Dutch: nul (nl)
Esperanto: nulo (eo)
Finnish: nolla (fi)
French: zéro (fr)
German: null (de)
Hebrew: אפס‎ (he) m (éfes)
Hungarian: null (hu), semmi (hu)
Italian: zero (it)
Latin: nulli
Macedonian: нула (mk) f (nula)
Norwegian: null (no)

Polish: zero (pl), jajo (pl)
Portuguese: zero (pt)
Russian: ноль (ru) m (nolʹ)
Scottish Gaelic: neoni
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: ну̏ла f

Latin: nȕla (sh) f
Slovak: nula (sk) f
Spanish: cero (es), nada (es)
Swedish: noll (sv)
Tagalog: wala (tl)
Tamil: காதல் (ta) (kātal), அன்பு (ta) (aṉpu)
Vietnamese: không (vi)
West Frisian: nul (fy)

ReferencesEdit

love at OneLook Dictionary Search
love in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
love in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

AnagramsEdit

levo, levo-, velo-, vole, voël