love toy

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

love toy (plural love toys)

1. (obsolete) Amorous play; flirtation, lovemaking.
   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, III.1.1.i:

     They cannot abide to hear talk of love-toys, or amorous discourses, vultu, gestu, oculis, in their outward actions averse, and yet in their cogitations they are all out as bad, if not worse than others.

2. An object to be played with during sexual intercourse; something or someone used for sexual pleasure; a sex toy.
   • 1998 September 21, Walter Kirn, “What the guys think: Clinton's a screw-up”, in Time:

     But Clinton wasn't clever, according to Starr. He wasn't even awake, it seems. To keep his love toy under wraps, it's charged, he enrolled every friend, acquaintance and staff member other than the senior White House tour guide.