love
Americannoun
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a strong feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, such as for a parent, child, friend, or pet.
He bent and kissed his newborn daughter on the brow, his heart full of love and gratitude.
- Synonyms:
- friendliness, regard, inclination, liking
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a profoundly tender, passionate affection, often mingled with sexual desire, for another person.
The couple’s ardent love for each other, poured out in these love letters, survived their wartime separation.
- Synonyms:
- adoration, passion, warmth, predilection, fondness, tenderness
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sexual passion or desire.
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active, self-giving concern for the well-being of others.
Love of one's neighbor is the greatest virtue.
What this suffering world needs is more love.
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a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
I long to be with you, my love.
He was my first and only love.
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(used as a term of endearment, affection, or the like).
Would you like to see a movie, love?
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a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour.
It's the story of her many loves, told through the eyes of a journalist.
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Love, a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid.
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strong enthusiasm or liking for anything.
His huge personal library testified to his love of books.
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a thing for which one has a strong enthusiasm or liking.
The theater was her great love.
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Religion. the benevolent affection and deep compassion of God for all creatures, or the reverent devotion returned from them to God.
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Chiefly Tennis. a score of zero; nothing.
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a word formerly used in communications to represent the letter L.
verb (used with object)
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to have a warm personal attachment to or deep affection for.
All her students love her.
I fuss over you, I know, but I love you and I want you to be safe.
- Synonyms:
- like
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to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection, often mingled with sexual desire, for (another person).
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to feel a strong liking for or take great pleasure in; enjoy actively and with enthusiasm.
I love music.
He's loving his new job.
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to feel or show active, self-giving concern for.
Love your neighbor—even the one you don’t like.
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to feel or express reverent devotion toward; adore.
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to need or require; benefit greatly from.
Plants love sunlight.
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to have sexual intercourse with.
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to embrace and kiss (someone), as a lover.
verb (used without object)
verb phrase
idioms
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for love,
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out of devotion, affection, liking, or enjoyment.
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without compensation.
He volunteered at the animal shelter for love.
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for the love of, in consideration of; for the sake of.
For the love of mercy, stop that noise!
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no love lost, dislike; animosity.
There was no love lost between the two brothers.
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in love, infused with or feeling deep affection or passion.
He was a youth always in love.
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in love with, feeling deep affection or passion for (a person, idea, occupation, etc.); enamored of.
I was in love with the girl next door.
Anyone spending that many hours here without pay must be in love with their work!
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make love,
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to engage in sexual activity.
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to embrace and kiss as lovers.
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verb
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(tr) to have a great attachment to and affection for
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(tr) to have passionate desire, longing, and feelings for
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(tr) to like or desire (to do something) very much
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(tr) to make love to
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(intr) to be in love
noun
-
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an intense emotion of affection, warmth, fondness, and regard towards a person or thing
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( as modifier )
love song
love story
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a deep feeling of sexual attraction and desire
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wholehearted liking for or pleasure in something
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Christianity
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God's benevolent attitude towards man
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man's attitude of reverent devotion towards God
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Also: my love. a beloved person: used esp as an endearment
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informal a term of address, esp but not necessarily for a person regarded as likable
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(in tennis, squash, etc) a score of zero
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to become in love
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without payment
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(used with a negative) in any circumstances
I wouldn't eat a snail for love or money
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for the sake of
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in a state of strong emotional attachment and usually sexual attraction
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to have sexual intercourse (with)
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archaic to engage in courtship (with)
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Usage
What are other ways to say love?
The noun love refers to a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. When should you use love in place of affection or devotion? Find out on Thesaurus.com.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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lovesimple
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lovessimple
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have lovedperfect
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has lovedperfect
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am lovingprogressive
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are lovingprogressive
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is lovingprogressive
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have been lovingperfect progressive
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has been lovingperfect progressive
Past
-
lovedsimple
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had lovedperfect
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was lovingprogressive
-
were lovingprogressive
-
had been lovingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of love
First recorded before 900; Middle English noun love, louve, luve, Old English lufu, cognate with Old Frisian luve, Old High German luba, Gothic lubō; verb derived from the noun; akin to Latin libēre (earlier lubēre ) “to be pleasing,” Polish lubić “to like, enjoy;” see also lief ( def. )
Explanation
How can we love our partners, our parents, sunsets at the beach, cats, and Fridays? The types of love listed here mean different things — but what remains is the certainty, at least for now, that what you love is what you adore. Love is an expression of emotion. Love, it is said, can make you walk miles barefoot in the rain just to see the person you can't stop thinking about. Or, it can make you cross the street because the store "you love" is located there. Love is a versatile word — like what it describes. Love takes many forms, but the word typically describes an affection that is deep and emotional. If you say you’re “in love,” that tends to refer to the romantic kind of love.
Vocabulary lists containing love
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“It’s nice for the kids to be able to ask questions and learn from people that love it,” Shields said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Given that, and the clear love that drivers and fans share for Spa, it seems ridiculous it won't be on the calendar every year, while far less popular circuits are remaining.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
After his death, his obituary paid tribute to his love of Montana—while also revealing the work he and Jones had been doing together to build a livestock auction company, as well as a rodeo.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026
“I wanted to pay attention to the body and personality that had agreed out of love to reveal itself. My attention was a natural duty that could honor that love.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
“It looks to me like there’s a lot of regret here. But there’s a lot of love, too. You can get through anything when you’ve still got that.”
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
But in many ways, the World Cup did a better job of highlighting what the world loves about America than any military flyover ever could.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
Tom Brady, and I say this as a man who loves him, who was never the loudest voice in any room he dominated, only the most prepared.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026
Eric Smith, a military veteran from Shakopee, Minn., who loves to travel, is interested in investing — but he doesn’t want to spend his retirement “screwing around” with numbers or trying to time the market.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 14, 2026
It should be an easy decision, particularly since Sybylla loves him and Neill makes him so irresistible.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
“She’s a biophysicist-slash-cryptologist who loves to bake. Think of her as part Marie Curie and part Mary Poppins.”
From "City Spies" by James Ponti
He loved a hard day’s work that started early and finished late.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026
In 2019, First Data merged with Fiserv, a payments and tech infrastructure platform for banks that was long loved on Wall Street for being a reliable investment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
The bill has passed through two state Senate committee hearings, helped by testimony from McKinnor and witnesses who have lost loved ones to accidents and offered accounts they had seen of unsafe driving.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
Speaking to Lucy Owen on BBC Radio Wales, Peston said his wife "loved everything Welsh", including the coastline, and the couple enjoyed taking "endless walks along the cliffs" together.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
Somehow he had taught Marlene to kneel down and to lift her trunk at his command, and the children loved this.
From "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo
"Music itself brings people together, but Carnival certainly brings them together for more reasons than one and it's not about animosity, it brings them together in a loving way, harmonious way."
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Jeremy Howe, who edits The Archers, called Greene "utterly singular, a fabulous and raucously funny raconteur" in a statement, calling her depiction of Jill "formidable, but also wonderfully warm, loving and enormous fun".
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
The Ingalls folk, after all, are warm, loving, American and, as such, inclined to take a road trip.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
When it comes to fear of heights, Maddi Haferling was born with the opposite gene — loving heights.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
Over the years, I’ve mastered the ability to only see the good parts of Mom —the sparkly, loving parts that made me feel special.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
