love

Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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See also: Love, lové, lóve, løve, lóvé, and лове

English[edit]

English phrasebook
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Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

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.

Noun[edit]

love (countable and uncountable, plural loves)

  1. (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?
  2. (countable) A person who is the object of romantic feelings; a darling, a sweetheart, a beloved.
    • (Can we date this quote by Edmund Spenser and provide title, author's full name, and other details?)
      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!
    • 1969, The Dubliners, Dirty Old Town:
      I met my love by the gasworks wall.
  3. (colloquial, Commonwealth of Nations) A term of friendly address, regardless of feelings.
    Hello love, how can I help you?
  4. 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."
  5. (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.
  6. (euphemistic) Sexual activity.
  7. An instance or episode of being in love; a love affair.
    • (Can we date this quote?), E. L. Todd, Then Came Absolution (→ISBN):
      Maybe it was just a summer love, something with no future.
  8. Used as the closing, before the signature, of a letter, especially between good friends or family members, or by the young.
  9. 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; [...]
  10. (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.
  11. A climbing plant, Clematis vitalba.
Synonyms[edit]
Antonyms[edit]
Translations[edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb[edit]

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

  1. (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!
  2. (transitive) To need, thrive on.
    Mold loves moist, dark places.
  3. (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
  4. (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: 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.
  5. (transitive) To derive delight from a fact or situation.
    I love the fact that the coffee shop now offers fat-free chai latte.
  6. (transitive, euphemistic) To have sex with (perhaps from make love).
    I wish I could love her all night long.
Conjugation[edit]
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
Antonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Terms derived from the noun or verb love
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

See also[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

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-.

Verb[edit]

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

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

Etymology 3[edit]

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.

Noun[edit]

love (uncountable)

  1. (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.
Translations[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Czech[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from Romani love.

Noun[edit]

love f pl

  1. (slang) money

Declension[edit]

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Synonyms[edit]

Noun[edit]

love m

  1. vocative singular of lov

Further reading[edit]

  • love in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu

Danish[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

See lov

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /lɔːvə/, [ˈlɔːwə]

Noun[edit]

love c

  1. indefinite plural of lov

Etymology 2[edit]

From Middle Low German lōve.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /lɔːvə/, [ˈlɔːwə]

Noun[edit]

love c

  1. trust, faith
Related terms[edit]

Etymology 3[edit]

From Old Norse lofa.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /lɔːvə/, [ˈlɔːwə]

Verb[edit]

love (imperative lov, infinitive at love, present tense lover, past tense lovede, perfect tense har lovet)

  1. praise
  2. promise

Dutch[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

love

  1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of loven

Anagrams[edit]

French[edit]

Verb[edit]

love

  1. inflection of lover:
    1. first-person /third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative

Anagrams[edit]

Friulian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin lupa, feminine of lupus. Compare Venetian lova, French louve.

Pronunciation[edit]

Phonetik.svg This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA then please add some!

Noun[edit]

love f (plural lovis)

  1. she-wolf

Related terms[edit]

Hunsrik[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

love

  1. to praise

Further reading[edit]

Inari Sami[edit]

Numeral[edit]

love

  1. ten

Middle Dutch[edit]

Noun[edit]

lōve

  1. dative singular of lof

Middle English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old English lufu, from Proto-Germanic *lubō.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

love (plural loves)

  1. love

Descendants[edit]

  • English: love
  • Scots: luve, lufe

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old Norse lofa.

Verb[edit]

love (imperative lov, present tense lover, simple past and past participle lova or lovet, present participle lovende)

  1. to praise

Verb[edit]

love (imperative lov, present tense lover, simple past lova or lovet or lovte or lovde, past participle lova or lovet or lovt or lovd, present participle lovende)

  1. to promise
    (as an adjective) det lovede land - the Promised Land

Related terms[edit]

References[edit]

Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]

Verb[edit]

love (present tense lovar or lover, past tense lova or lovde, past participle lova or lovt or lovd, present participle lovande, imperative lov)

  1. Alternative form of lova

Romani[edit]

Noun[edit]

love

  1. plural of lovo
  2. money

Descendants[edit]

Serbo-Croatian[edit]

Noun[edit]

love (Cyrillic spelling лове)

  1. vocative singular of lov

Verb[edit]

love (Cyrillic spelling лове)

  1. third-person plural present of loviti
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