amative

adjective

am·​a·​tive ˈa-mə-tiv 

1

: strongly moved by love and especially sexual love : amorous sense 1

A man of convivial and amorous habits, he was so amative that his temper was known to everyone in every village around. A greatest philanderer, to put it mildly, although aging.

—Lara Biyuts

2

: relating to or indicative of love : amorous sense 3

Most spectacularly, she claimed to have been tutored in the amative arts by an angel named Soph, the spirit of a deceased suitor she had once spurned.

—Mathew N. Schmalz

amatively adverb

amativeness noun

Did you know?

The Lovely History of Amative

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…. Elizabeth Barrett Browning came up with eight ways to express her love in her poem; we offer six ways, or rather six words, to describe those expressions of love. Besides the familiar "amorous" and "amative," there's "amatory," "amoristic," "amatorious," and "amatorial." What we love about this list is that all the words stem from Latin amare, meaning "to love." "Amative," which was first introduced in 1636, was modeled on Medieval Latin amativus, from the past participle of "amare." "Amorous," on the other hand, goes back to Middle English and came from Medieval Latin amorosus, an adjective based on the noun "amor" ("love").

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Medieval Latin amātīvus, from Latin amāt-, stem in nominal derivation of amāre "to have affection for, love" + -īvus -ive — more at amateur

First Known Use

1633, in the meaning defined at sense 2

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