amour

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English amour,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman amur, also amour and amor, friendship, affection, a lover or romantic love,^[4][5][6] from Latin amor (“love, sexual passion, a love affair”),^[4][6][7] from amō (“to love”).^[6][7][8] The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Unabridged route it through Old Occitan amor,^[9][3] and Dictionary.com takes the French form as a dialect form or a borrowing from Old Provençal.^[10] The OED compares Catalan amor, Spanish amor, Portuguese amor and Italian amore, and also Middle Dutch amor (“lover”) and Middle High German amūr, both borrowed from French.^[4] For the sense "lover" it also compares Old French ameor, from Latin amātor, the source of amateur;^[4] the Middle English Dictionary derives amour "lover" from ameor.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Love, at first in the sense of affection, friendship or devotion: before 1300, in a lyric printed in Carleton Brown's English Lyrics of the 13th Century.^[4] Barnhart dates the word to probably before 1300, in Kyng Alisaunder,^[7] and Etymonline to about 1300.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English amour was a common word for love between the sexes, but also for spiritual love, charity, and for friendship;^[2][11] the plural meant love-making or love affairs, and in amours meant in love (about 1330 to 1631).^[4][2] The sense "lover, sweetheart" is recorded from about 1400, but was rare before the 20th century.^[4][2] The modern sense, a love affair, especially an illicit or secret one, dates from 1567,^[4][12] and Johnson (1755) defined the word as an affair of gallantry or an intrigue, generally of vicious love.^[13] Etymonline explains that the stress moved to the first syllable between the 15th and 17th centuries as the word was naturalized, and moved back when the sense "illicit love affair" became the main one in the 17th century and the word was felt to be a euphemism borrowed from French.^[6][11] The older sense "love" is now rare except in amour propre and amour courtois.^[8]

Timeline

• before 1300 – love, at first affection or friendship; later romantic or sexual love.^[4]
• c. 1330 – plural, romantic or sexual love, also in the phrase in amours, in love (obsolete by 1631).^[4][2]
• c. 1400 – a lover, a paramour.^[4][2]
• 1567 – a love affair, especially an illicit or secret one.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A love affair, especially a secret or illicit one: the minister's many amours.^[14][3][4]
2. Love, especially sexual love.^[3][4][8]
3. Lovemaking or courtship, usually in the plural.^[3][4]
4. (obsolete) Close attachment; intimate friendship.^[3][4]

Related words

• amorous
• amour propre
• enamour
• paramour
• amateur

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins