A strong feeling of affection, attachment, or devotion.
A strong feeling of affection, attachment, or devotion — the broad, deep base term, spanning romantic, familial, friendly, and charitable kinds.
The broad base term and by far the most polysemous: it can name the deepest human bond yet also a casual enthusiasm (“I love this color”). Affection, fondness, tenderness, and warmth are all milder, narrower aspects love can contain. Devotion and adoration add loyalty or reverence beyond ordinary love; infatuation is shallow and short-lived where love is deep; attachment is more neutral and structural. The only word here that freely takes a human object in the deepest sense and also serves as a casual intensifier.
Deep romantic or sexual attraction and attachment toward another.
The “make love” euphemism for sex is only from about 1950; earlier it meant “pay amorous attention to.”
Warm attachment grounded in kinship, friendship, or benevolence — familial, brotherly, or charitable love.
Includes the agape sense of selfless goodwill.
Active pleasure in a thing or activity — “a love of the sea,” “I'd love to.”
A weakened sense already present in Old English.
A score of zero in tennis.
From “playing for love” (1670s), i.e. for no stakes; the tennis sense dates to 1742.
Old English lufu “love, affection, friendliness,” from Proto-Germanic *lubo, from PIE *leubh- “to care, desire, love.” Cognate with German Liebe.
The weakened sense “liking, fondness” is already in Old English; “a beloved person” by the early 13c. The tennis “zero” sense (1742) comes from “playing for love” = for nothing. No reliable recent-generation shift beyond ongoing colloquial intensifier use.