Love Definition

lŭv
loved, loves, loving
noun
loves
A strong feeling of affection and concern toward another person, as that arising from kinship or close friendship.
American Heritage Medicine
A feeling of brotherhood and good will toward other people.
Webster's New World
A strong, usually passionate, affection of one person for another, based in part on sexual attraction.
Webster's New World
A deep and tender feeling of affection for or attachment or devotion to a person or persons.
Webster's New World
Charity.
American Heritage
verb
loved, loves, loving
To feel love for.
Webster's New World
To feel sexual love for (a person).
American Heritage
To show love for by embracing, fondling, kissing, etc.
Webster's New World
To feel devotion to (God or a god).
American Heritage
To delight in; take pleasure in.
To love books.
Webster's New World
Synonyms:
pronoun
Wiktionary

An unincorporated community in Kentucky.

Wiktionary
idiom
for love
  • Out of compassion; with no thought for a reward:

    She volunteers at the hospital for love.

American Heritage
for love or money
  • Under any circumstances. Usually used in negative sentences:

    I would not do that for love or money.

American Heritage
for the love of
  • For the sake of; in consideration for:

    did it all for the love of praise.

American Heritage
in love
  • Deeply or passionately enamored:

    a young couple in love.

  • Highly or immoderately fond:

    in love with Japanese painting; in love with the sound of her own voice.

American Heritage
no love lost
  • No affection; animosity:

    There's no love lost between them.

American Heritage

Other Word Forms of Love

Noun

Singular:
love
Plural:
loves

Idioms, Phrasal Verbs Related to Love

Origin of Love

  • From Middle English love, luve, from Old English lufu (“love, affection, desire"), from Proto-Germanic *lubō (“love"), from Proto-Indo-European *lewbÊ°-, *leubÊ°- (“love, care, desire"). Cognate with Old Frisian luve (“love"), Old High German luba (“love"). Related to Old English lÄ“of (“dear, beloved"), lÄ«efan (“to allow, approve of"), Latin libet, lubō (“to please") and Albanian lyp (“to beg, ask insistently"), lips (“to be demanded, needed"), Serbo-Croatian ljubiti, ljubav, Russian любовь (ljubovʹ), любить (ljubitʹ).

    From Wiktionary

  • From Middle English loven, lovien, from Old English lofian (“to praise, exalt, appraise, value"), from Proto-Germanic *lubōnÄ… (“to praise, vow"), from *lubÄ… (“praise"), from Proto-Indo-European *leubÊ°- (“to like, love, desire"), *lewbÊ°-. Cognate with Scots love, lofe (“to praise, honour, esteem"), Dutch loven (“to praise"), German loben (“to praise"), Swedish lova (“to promise, pledge"), Icelandic lofa (“to promise"). See also lofe.

    From Wiktionary

  • From Middle English loven, lovien, from Old English lufian (“to love, cherish, sow love to; fondle, caress; delight in, approve, practice"), from the noun lufu (“love"). See above. Compare West Frisian leavje (“to love"), German lieben (“to love").

    From Wiktionary

  • The previously held belief that it originated from the French term l'Å“uf (“the egg"), due to its shape, is no longer widely accepted.

    From Wiktionary

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

    From Wiktionary

  • Middle English from Old English lufu leubh- in Indo-European roots

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • From the phrase Neither for love nor for money, meaning "nothing".

    From Wiktionary

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