love

love · noun¹

1. Proto-Indo-European*lewbʰ-
2. Proto-Indo-European*lewbʰéh₂
3. Proto-Germanic*lubō
4. Proto-West Germanic*lubu
5. Old Englishlufu
6. Middle Englishlove
7. English todaylove

From Middle English love, luve, from Old English lufu, from Proto-West Germanic *lubu, from Proto-Germanic *lubō, from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ- (“love, care, desire”). The close of a letter sense is presumably a truncation of With love or the like. Eclipsed non-native English amour (“love”), borrowed from Norman amour (“love”). Cognates Cognate with Scots luve (“love”), Saterland Frisian ljo, ljoo, ljoof (“dear, sweet”), Ljoote, Ljoowe (“love”), West Frisian leaf (“friendly, kind, cordial”), leafde (“love”), Dutch lief (“lovely, nice, sweet”), liefde (“love”), German lieb (“dear; lovable”), Liebe (“love”), German Low German Leevde, Lieve (“love”), Luxembourgish léif (“lovely, kind, nice, sweet”), Léift (“love”), Vilamovian łiwa (“love”), Yiddish ליב (lib, “nice; kind”), Icelandic ljúfur (“beloved, dear”), Norwegian Nynorsk, Swedish ljuv (“lovely, sweet”), Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐌿𐍆𐍃 (liufs, “beloved, dear”), Albanian lyp (“to beg”), Russian любовь (ljubovʹ, “love”), Lithuanian liaupsė (“praise”), Latin libido (“desire, lust”), Polish lubić (“to like”), Persian آلفتن (âloftan, “to enamor”), Sanskrit लोभ (lobha, “desire, greed”).

love · verb²

1. Old Englishlufian
2. Middle Englishloven
3. English todaylove

The verb sense is from Middle English loven, luvien, from Old English lufian (“to love”), from Proto-West Germanic *lubōn (“to love”), derived from the noun.

love · noun³

1. Proto-Indo-European*h₂ew-der.?
2. Proto-Indo-European*h₂éwis
3. Proto-Indo-European*h₂ōwyóm
4. Proto-Italic*ōw(j)om
5. Classical Latinōvum
6. Vulgar Latin*ŏvum
7. Old Frenchoef
8. Middle Frenchœuf
9. Frenchl’œuf?
10. English todaylove

Now widely believed (due to historical written record) to be from the idea that when one does a thing “for love” it is for no monetary gain, the word “love” thus implying “nothing”. Use of “love” for having no score extends to the 18th century in tennis as well as certain card games. The former assumption that it had originated from French l’œuf (literally “the egg”), due to its shape, has largely been discredited and is no longer widely accepted. However, the apparent similarity of the shape of an egg to a zero has inspired similar analogies, such as the use of duck (reputed to be short for duck's egg) for a zero score at cricket, and goose egg for "zero".

LoVe · proper noun⁴

Syllabic abbreviation of Logan and Veronica, as a deliberate homophone of love.

Words from the same roots