loveful

English

Etymology

From Middle English luveful; equivalent to love +‎ -ful.

Adjective

loveful (comparative more loveful, superlative most loveful) (poetic)

1. Full of love; loving.
   • 1800, John Hearns, A cordial of comfort, page 49:

     For now she was so close to him and knelt, / And rose, him gracing with a loveful smile, / Pure and serene, more with her eyes than lips.

   • 1843, The New Age, Concordium Gazette, & Temperance Advocate, page 92:

     It is a loveful dominion at which he must arrive. To this he never can attain, so long as his lower appetites and natures are interested in giving a lower value to the animals. He who goes to the butcher to cheapen lamb-chops for his gratification, is not in the best possible condition for declaring God's highest purpose in the creation of lambs.

   • 1846, Ellen Pickering, The Grandfather, page 152:

     And a woman, although she may long in her heart for some loveful nook where he will be all her own, must be careful never to let the utterance of such a wish be suffered to interfere with his interests and ambition.

   • 1881, James Alexander Wickersham, Aliso and Acne, page 96:

     […] The sweetest kiss, the tenderest embrace, / The smile most winning, and the tone most loveful, […]

   • 2011, Francis B. Nyamnjoh, Predicaments, page 23:

     […] For as he dies he shares / A loveful message: […]

2. (nonstandard) Evoking a feeling of love; lovable.
   • 1848, R, “Marriage, Real and Nominal”, in Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine, volume 7, page 357:

     White and beautiful, gentle and loveful though she be, softly though she down the eyrie, and neatly though she arrange it for his reception, she is still but a dove;

   • 2005, Bonnie Johanna Gisel, Nature Journal with John Muir:

     I found Linnaea spreading and blooming in glorious exuberance far and wide over mossy ground, beneath spruce and pine,—the wildest and the gentlest, the most beautiful and most loveful of all the inhabitants of the wilderness.

   • 2013, Ellen Banks Elwell, The One Year Devotions for Moms, page 30:

     He must have been enjoying our time together because he looked up at me and said, "Mommy, you're loveful and beautiful and heartful."

   • 2014, Daniel Sebata, Why Rock The Boat When You Don’t Know How To Swim?:

     You are beautyful ^[sic] and loveful. I want to held your hand and walked with you, hand and hand. Pliz love me second because I love you first.

3. Seeking or desiring love.
   • 1874, John MacClure, Echoes from sunny-land. A poem, in five cantos, page 166:

     So, all desire, when day hath fled, / And Twilight's wings the sky o'erspread, / Forth posts yon swain in loveful quest / To clasp his mistress to his breast.

   • 1984, Mohar Singh Rao, Vital New and Revolutionary Principles of Human Psychology, page 202:

     Their wishful and loveful ( lustful ) thinking causes serious misperceptions, misinterpretations, misjudgements, and misvaluations about the beloved.

   • 2019, Jay Blue, Scattered Light, page 104:

     Yet I in no loveful longing still rushed on spirit's open wing as if no love I'd ever seen and he my one, belonging to my heart and secret past, knew all of me and my desire, within my heart the ripples cast – thus I could not forget.

Antonyms

• hateful