true loven.
/ˌtruː ˈlʌv/, U.S. /ˈˌtru ˈləv/ 1. Faithful or genuine love.
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the mind > emotion > love > amorous love > [noun] > true or faithful love
true loveOE
OE Cynewulf Crist II 538 Wæs seo treowlufu hat æt heortan, hreder [read hreðer] innan weoll, beorn breostsefa.
a1300 Passion our Lord l. 625 in R. Morris Old Eng. Misc. (1872) 55 (MED) He heyhte heom holde treowe luue euerych to oþre, ‘As ich habbe eu yluued, for ye beoþ alle broþre.’
a1350 in K. Böddeker Altengl. Dichtungen (1878) 199 Iesu,..þou ne askest me non oþer þing, bote trewe loue & eke seruyng.
a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) l. 20300 Vre leuedi wep, saint iohan alsua, Treu luue was omang þam tua.
a1470 T. Malory Morte Darthur (Winch. Coll. 13) (1990) I. 69 There was muche tr[e]w love betwyxte hem.
a1500 Pennyworth of Wit (Cambr.) l. 56 in Englische Studien (1884) 7 119 (MED) That was foly, be my fay, That fayrenes schulde trew loue betray!
1557 Earl of Surrey et al. Songes & Sonettes (new ed.) f. 95 The louer disceiued by his loue repenteth him of the true loue he bare her.
1660 J. Dancer tr. T. Tasso Aminta i. ii. 21 Is it possible if she should hear Thee say thus much? she longer could forbear, This true love to requite?
1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 261. ¶4 True Love has ten thousand Griefs..that render a Man unamiable in the Eyes of the Person whose Affection he sollicits.
a1773 J. Gregory Father's Legacy to Daughters (1774) 114 True love is founded on esteem, in a correspondence of tastes and sentiments, and steals on the heart imperceptibly.
1813 W. Scott Bridal of Triermain ii. xvii. 80 To plead their right, and true-love plight.
1857 C. M. Yonge Dynevor Terrace I. xi. 160 Jane has a soft spot in her heart, and will not think true love is confined within the rank that keeps a gig.
1938 D. Runyon Take it Easy 70 You can see that this is undoubtedly true love.
1974 Publishers Weekly 26 Aug. 250/3 A novel about a nude model who longs for true love.
2003 Eve Aug. 90/3 But is speed dating a fast track to true love or to confidence-crushing rejection?
2. † b. In full Canada true love, true love of Canada. A North American plant of the related genus Trillium, a trillium or wake-robin. Cf. herb true-love n. 2. Obsolete.
a. The plant herb Paris, Paris quadrifolia (family Melanthiaceae or Trilliaceae), which has a whorl of four leaves with a single flower or berry in the centre, thought to resemble a true-love knot. Cf. herb true-love n. 1. Now historical.
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the world > plants > particular plants > plants and herbs > according to family > Liliaceae family or plants > [noun] > herb Paris
true lovec1390
four-leaved grassc1450
one-berry1548
herb Paris1578
herb true-love1597
c1390 (?a1325) Long Charter of Christ (Vernon) A. l. 126 in F. J. Furnivall Minor Poems Vernon MS (1901) ii. 646 A foure-leued gras ȝeld þou me;..whon þeose four leues to-geder ben set A trewe loue men clepen hit.
c1405 (c1390) G. Chaucer Miller's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 506 Vnder his tonge a trewe loue he beer For ther by wende he to be gracious.
?c1445 J. Osbern in Paston Lett. & Papers (2004) II. 26 Floweres of sylver on þe bukkelis mad of iiij lyke a trewlove.
1578 H. Lyte tr. R. Dodoens Niewe Herball i. v. 10 The seede [of Hound's-tongue] is flat and rough, three or foure together like to a trueloue, or foure leaued grasse.
1678 E. R. Experienced Farrier ii. 35 One-berry-Herb, True-love, or Herb-Paris, is very cold, whereby it represseth the rage and force of poison.
1778 G. White Let. 3 July in Nat. Hist. Selborne (1789) 235 [I found] Paris quadrifolia, herb Paris, true-love, or one-berry.
1838 M. Howitt Birds & Flowers 96 There grows the four-leaved plant ‘true love’, In some dusk woodland spot.
1921 Amer. Botanist 27 142 The name of ‘true-love’..was long ago applied to Paris quadrifolia.
2003 Horticulture May 55/1 Paris quadrifolia..has garnered such vernacular names as true love, [etc.].
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the world > plants > particular plants > plants and herbs > according to family > Liliaceae family or plants > [noun] > Trillium
herb true-love1640
birthroot1707
three-leaved nightshade1760
Trillium1760
true love1760
Indian balm1830
nosebleed1869
wake-robin1871
white bath1891
1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. Appendix 319/1 True-love of Canada, Trillium.
1819 A. Rees Cycl. XXXVI. (at cited word) True Love of Canada, see Herb Paris of Canada.
1823 T. C. Haliburton Gen. Descr. Nova Scotia 36 Canada True love, Trillium erectum.
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the mind > emotion > love > amorous love > [noun] > love-token or love-gift > ribbon worn as love-token > knot or bow of ribbon used as love-token
true lovec1400
love-knotc1405
true-love knot1496
amoretc1500
lover's knot1565
true lover's knot1577
loving knota1596
c1400 (?c1390) Sir Gawain & Green Knight (1940) l. 612 Tortors & trulofeȝ, entayled so þyk.
c1440 (a1400) Awntyrs Arthure (Thornton) l. 354 His mantylle..Trofelyte and trauerste wythe trewloues in trete.
1513 Last Test. of J. de Veer in Archaeologia (1915) 66 314 Another stonding cupe gilt and enameled wt blew Trulovys in the botom.
c1540 Image Ipocrysy i, in J. Skelton Poet. Wks. (1843) II. 419 Gay gloves..Wroughte with true loves.
?1578 W. Patten Let. Entertainm. Killingwoorth 47 His napkin, edged with a blu lace, and marked with a trulooue, a hart, and a D. for Damian.
1600 in J. Arnold Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (1988) 332/3 Item in Buttons of golde with ragged staves and trueloves of Diamondes lacking the diamondes of one Button.
4. Chiefly with possessive pronoun.
a. A person who has faithfully promised to love another or who is faithfully loved by another; a beloved, a sweetheart.
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the mind > emotion > love > a lover > [noun] > faithful lover or sweetheart
true lovec1425
Romeo?1566
bosom-lover1600
c1425 in R. H. Robbins Secular Lyrics 14th & 15th Cent. (1952) 145 Be crist, & yt wer in my myght, scho suld my treuluf be. Scho suld be my hertes sqwen [read qwen].
a1475 in F. J. Furnivall Polit., Relig., & Love Poems (1903) 181 I am treulove, that fals was neuer: my sistur, mannys soule, I loued hyr thus.
c1500 in R. H. Robbins Secular Lyrics 14th & 15th Cent. (1952) 195 (MED) Her..I call my trulof & lady.
1567 G. Turberville Epitaphes, Epigrams f. 130v Help me to lament ye losse of my true loue. The Tree whereon she sat shall be the place where I Will sing my last.
a1586 Sir P. Sidney Arcadia (1593) iii. sig. Gg3 My true loue hath my hart, and I haue his.
1607 G. Chapman Bussy D'Ambois iii. 30 Ahlasse, what troubled my true loue?
?1655 L. Price Merry Dialogue John & Bessee (single sheet) If thoul't be my True-love, my Joy & my Honey, all this I will doe for thee.
1752 G. A. Stevens Distress upon Distress ii. 66 My Dear, 'tis I, your True-love, Spunge.
1793 J. O'Keeffe London Hermit iii. iii. 85 I'll release my own true love, though I beg my bread for it.
1837 Ld. Tennyson Oh! that 'twere Possible in Ld. Northampton Tribute 244 Oh! that 'twere possible,..To find the arms of my true-love Round me once again!
1871 F. T. Palgrave Lyrical Poems 73 My one true-love, My only.
1919 ‘K. Mansfield’ Let. 22 Nov. (1993) III. 109 Goodbye for now my precious. The flag flies. Ever your true love, Wig.
1967 T. M. Disch in Fantasy & Sci. Fiction Apr. 373 Birdie lay in bed in the empty dorm, drowsing and thinking of his true-love.
2005 Metro (Toronto) 2 Dec. 27/2 Instead of realizing he's her true love, Pippa goes off for a good time with a hunky photographer.
b. figurative. Something that a person loves dearly and that provides an unfailing source of pleasure or satisfaction.
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the mind > emotion > pleasure > quality of being pleasant or pleasurable > [noun] > source of pleasure
honeycombOE
sweetness?c1225
dainty1340
sweet1377
delicec1390
lust1390
pleasancec1390
pleasingc1390
well-queema1400
well-queemnessa1400
douceurc1400
delectation?a1425
pleasure1443
pleaserc1447
delectabilitiesa1500
deliciositiesa1500
honeydew1559
delicacy1586
fancy1590
sugar candy1591
regalo1622
happiness1637
deliciousness1651
complacence1667
regalea1677
sweetener1741
bon-bon1856
Bones1869
jam1871
true love1893
nuts1910
barrel of fun (laughs, etc.)1915
G-spot1983
the mind > emotion > love > loved one > [noun] > loved thing
darlingc1430
true love1893
1893 R. L. Stevenson Lett. (1899) II. 314 The British pig returns to his true love, the love of the styleless, of the shapeless, of the slapdash and the disorderly.
1965 M. Young Miss MacIntosh, my Darling I. xxxv. 397 The suffrage movement had been her true love, her awesome husband, the masculine dream of her life, the abundant resource of her strength.
1997 M. J. Hanes Roads to Unconscious ix. 48 Drugs are my true love! Unlike women, I can always count on it to be there for me.
2008 Florida Times-Union (Nexis) 9 Aug. su24 I am no pizza newbie. It's my one true love—my friends know that when I die, I want to be buried with a slice.
Phrases
P1. Proverb. the course (also path) of true love never did run smooth and variants. Also in extended use.In later use chiefly echoing or alluding to quot. 1600.
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1600 W. Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream i. i. l.134 For aught that I could euer reade,..The course of true loue neuer did runne smoothe. View more context for this quotation
1756 London Mag. June 284/2 But, alas! ‘the course of true love never yet run smooth’: The ill-judged ambition of a parent induced the father..to refuse her hand to the only man in the world with whom she could live happily.
1830 Dramatic Mag. Sept. 246 As our great bard..has asserted, ‘that the path of true love never does run smooth’, so it was with these two lovers.
1895 W. L. Pickard Under War Flags of 1861 xlvi. 351 I had hoped that our love would give the falsehood to the old saw: ‘true love never runs smoothly’. But it seems that ours has run through cyclones and billows.
1927 Boys' Life Feb. 12/3 I've heard some of the terrible things that have happened to guys in love..and about the path of true love not running smooth.
1990 Independent (Nexis) 13 Apr. 20 The course of true love never did run smooth. From time to time..the Prime Minister found the president infuriatingly careless of British sensibilities.
2012 MailOnline (Nexis) 2 Sept. Most new couples expect obstacles only during courtship (despite being taught that 'the course of true love never did run smooth').
P2. Originally U.S. true love waits: (usually with capital initials) a slogan encouraging esp. young people to avoid sexual relations before marriage; frequently attributive, as true love waits campaign, etc.The slogan forms part of the pledge taken by members of True Love Waits (abbreviated TLW), a Christian organization formed by the Southern Baptist Convention in America in April 1993.
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1993 Daily News-Record (Harrisonburg, Va.) 21 Apr. 1/1 Nashville... The ‘True Love Waits’ campaign will be launched this week by Southern Baptists who are afraid ‘safe-sex’ messages are sending the wrong message to teens.
1993 N.Y. Times 21 June a12/1 Under the heading ‘True Love Waits’, the program's slogan, the..covenant card reads, ‘Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God,..to be sexually pure until the day I enter a covenant marriage relationship.’
2001 D. W. Haffner in E. J. Dionne & M. H. Chen Sacred Places, Civic Purposes iii. 35 The Southern Baptists' True Love Waits program..revolves around young people taking virginity pledges.
2008 Times 13 Sept. 17/4 The craze for purity rings..providing yet another excuse to hit the mall, this time for a $200 gold band inscribed with ‘True Love Waits’.
Compounds
C1. General attributive (frequently with hyphen) chiefly in sense 1.In quot. a1450 in sense 3.
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c1400 (?c1390) Sir Gawain & Green Knight (1940) l. 1527 Ȝe..Oghe to a ȝonke þynk ȝern to schewe & teche sum tokeneȝ of trweluf craftes.
a1450 Generides (Pierpont Morgan) (1865) l. 173 Of trewloue werk wroght ful wele.
1597 W. Shakespeare Richard II v. i. 10 And wash him fresh againe with true loue teares. View more context for this quotation
1604 W. Shakespeare Hamlet iv. v. 39 Larded all with sweet flowers, Which beweept to the ground did not go With true loue showers.
1651 J. Harington Hist. Polindor & Flostella i. 28 When growes Earth burdenous, may you then mount higher; Two True-love Soules at once expire.
1762 R. Lloyd Poems 169 Her altars Are deck'd with daggers, true-love halters.
a1788 W. J. Mickle Poems (1794) 149 He left the Scottish dames to weep, And wing'd with true love speed; Nor day, nor night, he stopt to sleep, And soon he cross'd the Tweed.
1818 W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian x, in Tales of my Landlord 2nd Ser. III. 273 ‘A sincere well-wisher of mine, sir.’.. ‘O, I understand,’..—‘a true-love affair.’
1875 S. Lanier Symphony 265 And man shall sing thee a true-love song, Voiced in act his whole life long.
1931 R. Campbell Georgiad ii. 47 That loving heart, that late had broken been, Was now stuck-to with true-love secotine.
1999 G. L. Jantz Too Close to Flame i. 5 Americans are being led to believe that nothing must hamper the sexual culmination of a true-love relationship.
C2. † true-love grass n. Obsolete the plant herb Paris (see sense 2a).
true-love flower n. a flower of herb Paris (see sense 2a); the plant itself.
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c1450 (c1400) Emaré (1908) l. 125 Portrayed þey wer wyth trewe-loue-flour.
1665 R. Brathwait Comment Two Tales Chaucer 45 Under his Tongue a true-love Flower couched.
1820 Jack & Queen Killers (Bristol Sel. Pamphlets) 13 True-love flowers..should have bloomed in pleasure's bowers.
2012 C. M. Cervone Poetics of Incarnation 277 The petals of the true-love flower are greenish-white.
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the world > plants > particular plants > plants and herbs > according to family > leguminous plants > [noun] > clover or trefoil
white clovereOE
cloverc1000
hare-foota1300
clerewort?a1400
clover-grassa1400
three-leaved grass14..
trefoilc1400
sucklingc1440
four-leaved grassc1450
trefle1510
Trifolium?1541
trinity grass1545
Dutch1548
lote1548
hare's-foot1562
lotus1562
triple grass1562
blain-grass1570
meadow trefoil1578
purple grass1597
purplewort1597
satin flower1597
cithyse1620
true-love grass?a1629
garden balsam1633
hop-clover1679
Burgundian hay1712
strawberry trefoil1731
honeysuckle trefoil1735
red clover1764
buffalo-clover1767
marl-grass1776
purple trefoil1785
white trefoil1785
yellow trefoil1785
sulla1787
cow-grass1789
strawberry-bearing trefoil1796
zigzag trefoil1796
rabbit's foot1817
lotus grass1820
strawberry-headed trefoil1822
mountain liquorice1836
hop-trefoil1855
clustered clover1858
alsike1881
mountain clover1882
knop1897
Swedish clover1908
sub clover1920
four-leaf clover1927
suckle-
?a1629 S. Steward in J. Mennes & J. Smith Musarum Deliciæ (1655) 33 The out-side of his Doublet was Made of the four-leav'd true-love grasse.
1881 T. L. O. Davies Suppl. Eng. Gloss. 670/2 Truelove grass, a plant growing in woods with purplish black berries.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2015; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.OE