love knot

English

Alternative forms

• love-knot

Etymology

So called from being used as a token of love, or as a pledge of mutual affection.

Noun

love knot (plural love knots)

1. A knot or bow, as of ribbon.
   • 1766, Oliver Goldsmith, chapter 4, in The Vicar of Wakefield:

     They kept up the Christmas carol, sent true love-knots on Valentine morning, eat pancakes on Shrove-tide, shewed their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on Michaelmas eve.

   • 1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 1, stanza III, page 46:

     He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there / But the landlord's black-eyed daughter, / Bess, the landlord's daughter, / Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.