loveshipn.
/ˈlʌvʃɪp/, U.S. /ˈləvˌʃɪp/ rare before 19th cent.
Loving behaviour; courtship; (also) the state of being in love or being a lover.In quot. 1824 used as a mock form of address to a person in love.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > love > courtship or wooing > [noun]
wooingc1000
wouhlechec1230
wouhlechunga1250
love work?a1300
love-druryc1300
love playc1390
suitc1475
lovemakinga1500
loveshipc1500
suiting1568
courtship1600
courting1607
suitoringa1640
amouring1675
sparking1804
sprunting1823
lovering1848
twosing1940
c1500 Piers of Fulham (Rawl.) in W. C. Hazlitt Remains Early Pop. Poetry Eng. (1866) II. 13 Loueship goith ay to warke [read wrake], Where that presence is put a bake.
1824 R. E. Landor Count Arezzi iii. vii. 105 Your loveship sits Like Æolus struggling with his subject winds.
1862 W. Dawbarn Ess. Tales 180 We were so hot with our loveship, that when Christmas-day came, I managed to get and spend the day with her.
a1916 E. Ellis New Horizon in Love (1921) I. 86 His attitude as lover..must be a blending of friendship, comradeship and loveship, but never a tyranny.
1974 A. R. Ammons Sphere cxxv. 66 I want, like Whitman, to found a federation of loveship.
2006 Globe & Mail (Toronto) (Nexis) 13 Oct. r23 A man and a woman hovering between friendship and loveship agree to spend 26 weekends together.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2008; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.c1500