love [OE] As you might expect, love is almost as old as time. The word’s ancient root is also the source of Latin libido ‘desire’ (which gave us libido [E20th]). Love is blind goes back to classical times, but first appeared in English in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the 14th century. Love makes the world go round appeared in a song of 1826; prior to this people seem to have focused more on drink making the world go round. All’s fair in love and war has been around in various forms since the late 16th century, while make love, not war was a slogan of the anti-Vietnam War protesters of the 1960s. The love that dare not speak its name is homosexuality. The description is by the poet Lord Alfred Douglas, whose association with Oscar Wilde led to Wilde being imprisoned in Reading gaol for homosexual activity.

The use of love in tennis, squash, and elsewhere for a score of zero [M18th] may come from to play for love of the game, not for money. A popular explanation connects it with French l’oeuf ‘egg’, from the resemblance in shape between an egg and a zero (see also duck).

In the late 20th century an actor, or anyone actively involved in entertainment, came to be a luvvy, a respelling of lovey, an affectionate term of address used since the mid 18th century.