make love

present singular third person makes love · participle present making love · participle past made love · past made love

1. euphemisticTo engage in sexual intercourse.First known use 1950s

   I caught them making love on my couch.

   5 more examples

   She takes just like a woman, yeah she does / She makes love just like a woman, yeah she does

   1966, Bob Dylan, “Just Like a Woman”, in Blonde on Blonde

   I feel like makin' love to you / That's the time / I feel like makin' dreams come true

   1974, “Feel Like Makin’ Love”, performed by Roberta Flack

   There's many times that we've loved / We've shared love and made love / It doesn't seem to me like it's enough

   1974, “Can't Get Enough of Your Love”, performed by Barry White

   You danced for me in your bare feet / That mellow afternoon / When we made love to each other

   1976, “Oh Lori”, in Alessi, performed by Alessi Brothers

   Wake up and make love with me, wake up and make love / Wake up and make love with me / I don't want to make you, I'll let the fancy take you / And you'll wake up and make love

   1977, “Wake Up And Make Love With Me”, in New Boots and Panties!!, performed by Ian Dury

   Synonyms: approach, cohabit, common, company, copulate, couple, engage in sex, exchange flesh

2. archaicTo make amorous approaches (to); to woo, romance, court.First known use 16th c.

   ‘Ever since I was sixteen men have been making love to me.’

   1941, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, Up at the Villa, Vintage, published 2004, page 24

   5 more examples

   So from thenceforth, when loue he to her made, / VVith better tearmes ſhe did him entertaine, / VVhich gaue him hope, and did him halfe perſvvade, / That he iunb time her ioyaunce ſhould obtaine.

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 7, page 494

   [S]carcely had they passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her subject cut up–her hand seized–her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious opportunity, declaring sentiments which must already be well known, […]

   1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter XV, in Emma: […], volume I, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, page 275

   About a week afterwards she said to him, point-blank, "Are you seriously making love to your little cousin?"

   1878 July–October, Henry James, Jr., chapter II, in The Europeans. A Sketch. […], volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1878, →OCLC, page 80

   After all, the chief charm is in the fact of being made love to. You are making love to me, aren't you?

   1910, Saki [pseudonym; Hector Hugh Munro], “The Baker’s Dozen”, in Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 107

   The first stage we tackled was just about as rickety as it could very well be and I had to sit with the driver, who was a Mormon and so handsome that I was not a bit offended when he insisted on making love all the way, especially after he told me that he was a widower Mormon.

   1914, Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Letters of a Woman Homesteader, Houghton Mifflin Company, pages 3–4

   Synonyms: address, beau, bedear, chase after, court, endear, make a move (on), pitch woo