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''amorous'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''amorous'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260917112150-00-⌔

amorous - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

amorous (comparative more amorous, superlative most amorous)

  • Inclined or having a propensity to love, or to sexual enjoyment.
    • ✤ Synonyms: loving, fond, affectionate
    • ✤ an amorous disposition
    • ✤ We were both feeling amorous so the inevitable happened.
    • ✤ Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.1
  • Indicating love or sexual desire.
    • ✤ She kept making these amorous suggestions.
    • ✤ UUho when he ſhal embrace you in his arms
      UUil tell how many thouſand men he ſlew.
      And when you looke for amorous diſcourſe,
      Will rattle foorth his facts of war and blood: […]      2
    • ✤ Long were to tell the amorous aſſayes,
      And gentle pangues, with which he maked meeke
      The mightie Mars, to learne his wanton playes:      3
    • ✤ There was no tune to it, only amorous gruntings like those of some old satyr who had furnished music for Circe’s revels.4
    • ✤ When held in the hand, the lizard produces an amorous stimulus.5
  • Of or relating to, or produced by, love.
    • ✤ She read me an amorous poem.
  • (dated) Affected with love; in love; enamored.
    • ✤ He had been amorous of her since schooldays.

Etymology

From Middle English amorous, amerous (14th century), from Old French amoros, amoreus, from Vulgar Latin ﹡amōrōsus, from Latin amor (“love”), related to amāre (“to love”). Compare French amoureux (“in love”). Doublet of amoroso and amoureux.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈæ.mə.ɹəs/, /ˈæm.ɹəs/
  • (General American) IPA: /ˈæ.mɚ.əs/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -æməɹəs

Printed 2026-09-17.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Afterglow”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 168: ↩

  2. c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene ii: ↩

  3. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 572: ↩

  4. 1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 218: ↩

  5. 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 139: ↩

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Secondary

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