Platonic love
Americannoun
-
Platonism. love of the Idea of beauty, seen as terminating an evolution from the desire for an individual and the love of physical beauty to the love and contemplation of spiritual or ideal beauty.
-
Usually platonic love an intimate companionship or relationship, especially between two people of different genders, that is characterized by the absence of sexual involvement; a spiritual affection.
Etymology
Origin of Platonic love
First recorded in 1635–45
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.
Platonic love is heroic and “excites to the desire for philosophy and truth,” he declaims.
From Slate ● Feb. 2, 2016
But it took the cleverness of Baldassare Castiglione, a 16th century popularizer of Platonic love treatises, to humanize the conceit for sophisticated courtiers.
From Time Magazine Archive
Advice: If ever Platonic love knocks at your door, kick him down your stairs unmercifully, for he is a prince of humbugs.
From Rambles in Womanland by Max O'Rell
The only kind of love that is really blind and deaf is Platonic love.
From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 05 Little Journeys to the Homes of English Authors by Elbert Hubbard
The more highly developed, self-conscious Hellenic genius, shrinking from promiscuous intercourse, had systematised the instinct and set up a new ideal in Platonic love.
From The Evolution of Love by Ellie Schleussner
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.
