love

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English love, also luve,^[2][3] inherited from Old English lufu (“love, affection, friendliness”),^[3][4][5] from Proto-Germanic *lubō,^[3][2][6][7] cognate with Old Frisian luve, Old Saxon luƀa, Old High German luba and the Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐍉𐌸𐍂𐌿𐌻𐌿𐌱𐍉 (brōþrulubō, “brotherly love”).^[8][2][6] Barnhart and Etymonline trace it to Proto-Indo-European *leubh- (“to care, desire, love”),^[2][3][9] which also gave Latin lubet (“it pleases”) and libīdō (“desire”).^[10][11] Another grade of the same Germanic base gave Old English lēof (“dear”), now lief, and Dutch lief and German lieb;^[4][2][8] leave in the sense of permission and believe are also related.^[10][2] The verb is inherited from Middle English loven, inherited from Old English lufian, formed from the noun.^[3][4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Deep affection or fondness for someone: Old English, first in the Vespasian Psalter;^[8] Barnhart dates lufu to before 725.^[2] In Old English it already meant friendliness, romantic attraction and the love of God, and could be personified.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

The weakened sense of liking or fondness for a thing is already Old English,^[3][8] and in Old English the noun could also mean an amicable settlement, as opposed to going to law, a sense last recorded in 1503.^[8] The meaning "a beloved person" appears in the early 13th century,^[3][8] and Chaucer used love as a form of address;^[8] it is now a familiar address to anyone in informal British use.^[8][12] The verb took on the weakened sense "to like, be pleased with" about 1200 and the intransitive sense "to be in love" in the 13th century.^[3][8] Phrases followed: to fall in love from the early 15th century, to make love from the 1570s in the sense of paying court, as a euphemism for sex only from about 1950, and no love lost about 1600, in Ben Jonson.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined the noun first as "the passion between the sexes".^[13] The scoring sense "zero" in tennis and other games is recorded by 1742, apparently from playing for love, for no stakes (1670s).^[3][14] In 19th-century Scotland, Ireland and England dialect speakers had compounds such as love-bairn, an illegitimate child.^[15]

Timeline

• before 725 – Old English lufu, love, affection.^[2]
• Old English – verb lufian, to feel love for; also to like, take pleasure in.^[8][3]
• c. 1200 – Middle English luve.^[2]
• c. 1225 – a beloved person, a sweetheart.^[8][3]
• c. 1230 – verb, intransitive, to be in love.^[8]
• c. 1405 – as a form of address to one's beloved.^[8]
• 1561 – an instance of being in love; in plural, love affairs.^[8]
• 1570s – to make love, to pay amorous attention.^[3]
• 1742 – no score, in tennis and other games.^[3]
• 1877 – verb, to fondle or caress (colloquial, originally American).^[8]
• c. 1950 – to make love, to have sex.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deep feeling of affection and care for a person, as within a family or between friends: a father's love for his daughter.^[16][12][8]
2. Intense romantic and sexual attraction to another person.^[16][12][8]
3. Sexual passion or activity; see make love.^[16][8]
4. Strong liking or enthusiasm for something: her love of chess.^[16][12][8]
5. A person one loves; a sweetheart; also, in informal British use, a friendly form of address.^[16][8]
6. In Christianity, God's benevolence towards people, and the devotion owed to God.^[12][8]
7. In tennis, squash and other games, a score of zero.^[14][3]

Verb

1. To feel deep affection for someone: He loves his grandparents.^[16][12][8]
2. To feel romantic and sexual attraction to someone.^[16][12][8]
3. To like something very much or enjoy doing it: She loves walking in the rain.^[16][12][8]
4. To be in love.^[16][12][8]

Related words

• luv
• lief
• leave
• believe
• libido
• libidinous

Usage notes

The Oxford Dictionary of English notes that the scoring sense was popularly connected with French l'oeuf, the egg, from the likeness of an egg to a zero, which it treats as folk etymology;^[14] Cassell's also prefers the phrase to play for love.^[17]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
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. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c d e f g h i The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
17. ^ Cassell's Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, London: Cassell