LOVE

1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.

2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.

3. a. Sexual passion. b. Sexual intercourse. c. A love affair.

4. An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.

5. A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.

6. An expression of one's affection: Send him my love.

7. a. A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language. b. The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.

8. Love. Mythology. Eros or Cupid.

9. Often Love. Theology. Charity.

10. Love. Christian Science. God.

11. Sports. A zero score in tennis.

verb

loved, lov·ing, loves verb, transitive

1. To have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward (a person): We love our parents. I love my friends.

2. To have a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward (a person).

3. To have an intense emotional attachment to: loves his house.

4. a. To embrace or caress. b. To have sexual intercourse with.

5. To like or desire enthusiastically: loves swimming.

6. Theology. To have charity for.

7. To thrive on; need: The cactus loves hot, dry air.

verb, intransitive

To experience deep affection or intense desire for another.

- idiom.

for love-Out of compassion; with no thought for a reward: She volunteers at the hospital for love.

for love or money-Under any circumstances. Usually used in negative sentences: I would not do that for love or money.

for the love of-For the sake of; in consideration for: did it all for the love of praise.

no love lost-No affection; animosity: There's no love lost between them.

[Middle English, from Old English lufu.]

Synonyms: love, affection, devotion, fondness, infatuation. These nouns denote feelings of warm personal attachment or strong attraction to another person. Love suggests a more intense feeling than that associated with the other words of this group: married for love. Affection is a less ardent and more unvarying feeling of tender regard: parental affection. Devotion is earnest, affectionate dedication; it implies a more selfless, often more abiding feeling than love: The devotion of the aged couple is inspiring. Fondness is strong liking or affection: showed their fondness for their grandchildren by financing their education. Infatuation is foolish or extravagant attraction, often of short duration: Their infatuation blinded them to the fundamental differences in their points of view. See also synonyms at LIKE1.

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Love is too young to know what conscience is.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English dramatist, poet. Sonnet 151.

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The spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher. Twilight of the Idols, "Morality as Anti-Nature," aph. 3 (1889).

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Parrots, tortoises and redwoods
Live a longer life than men do,
Men a longer life than dogs do,
Dogs a longer life than love does.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), U.S. poet. Pretty Love I Must Outlive You.

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A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears.

Woodrow Wyatt (b. 1918), British journalist. To the Point, "The Ears Have It" (1981). Wyatt's reasoning, apropos of women, was that "what is said to them and what they believe about a man's status is usually more important than the superficiality of good looks."

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Love is the direct opposite of hate. By definition it's something you can't feel for more than a few minutes at a time, so what's all this bullshit about loving somebody for the rest of your life?

Judith Rossner (b. 1935), U.S. author. Nine Months in the Life of an Old Maid, pt. 2 (1969).

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However it is debased or misinterpreted, love is a redemptive feature. To focus on one individual so that their desires become superior to yours is a very cleansing experience.

Jeanette Winterson (b. 1959), British author. Times (London, 26 Aug. 1992).

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Love is the cheapest of religions.

Cesare Pavese (1908-50), Italian poet, novelist, translator. The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950 (1952; tr. 1961), entry for 21 Dec. 1939.

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The desire for possession is insatiable, to such a point that it can survive even love itself. To love, therefore, is to sterilize the person one loves.

Albert Camus (1913-60), French-Algerian philosopher, author. The Rebel, pt. 4 (1951; tr. 1953).

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'Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it.

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), Spanish writer. Leonela, in Don Quixote, pt. 1, bk. 4, ch. 7 (1605; tr. by P. Motteux).

e·gal·i·tar·i·an

e·gal·i·tar·i·an (î-gàl´î-târ¹ê-en-) adjective

Affirming, promoting, or characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all people.

[From French égalitaire, from égalité, equality, from Latin aequâlitâs, from aequâlis, equal. See EQUAL.]

- e·gal´i·tar¹i·an noun

- e·gal´i·tar¹i·an·ism noun

e·qual·i·tar·i·an

e·qual·i·tar·i·an (î-kwòl´î-târ¹ê-en) adjective

Egalitarian.

- e·qual´i·tar¹i·an·ism noun

The trauma of the Sixties persuaded me that my generation's egalitarianism was a sentimental error. . . . I now see the hierarchical as both beautiful and necessary. Efficiency liberates; egalitarianism tangles, delays, blocks, deadens.

Camille Paglia (b. 1947), U.S. author, critic, educator. Sex, Art, and American Culture, "Sexual Personae: The Cancelled Preface" (1992).