make love meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

make love

verb

Etymology Calque of Old Occitan far amor, Middle French faire l'amour.

Euphemistic To engage in sexual intercourse.

I caught them making love on my couch.
She takes just like a woman, yeah she does / She makes love just like a woman, yeah she does1966, Bob Dylan, “Just Like a Woman”, in Blonde on Blonde:

4 more examples

I feel like makin' love to you / That's the time / I feel like makin' dreams come true1974, “Feel Like Makin’ Love”, performed by Roberta Flack:
There's many times that we've loved / We've shared love and made love / It doesn't seem to me like it's enough1974, “Can't Get Enough of Your Love”, performed by Barry White:
You danced for me in your bare feet / That mellow afternoon / When we made love to each other1976, “Oh Lori”, in Alessi, performed by Alessi Brothers:
Wake up and make love with me, wake up and make love / Wake up and make love with me / I don't want to make you, I'll let the fancy take you / And you'll wake up and make love1977, “Wake Up And Make Love With Me”, in New Boots and Panties!!, performed by Ian Dury:

Archaic To make amorous approaches (to); to woo, romance, court.

So from thenceforth, when loue he to her made, / VVith better tearmes ſhe did him entertaine, / VVhich gaue him hope, and did him halfe perſvvade, / That he iunb time her ioyaunce ſhould obtaine.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 7, page 494:
[S]carcely had they passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her subject cut up–her hand seized–her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious opportunity, declaring sentiments which must already be well known, […]1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter XV, in Emma: […], volume I, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, page 275:

4 more examples

About a week afterwards she said to him, point-blank, "Are you seriously making love to your little cousin?"1878 July–October, Henry James, Jr., chapter II, in The Europeans. A Sketch. […], volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1878, →OCLC, page 80:
After all, the chief charm is in the fact of being made love to. You are making love to me, aren't you?1910, Saki [pseudonym; Hector Hugh Munro], “The Baker’s Dozen”, in Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 107:
The first stage we tackled was just about as rickety as it could very well be and I had to sit with the driver, who was a Mormon and so handsome that I was not a bit offended when he insisted on making love all the way, especially after he told me that he was a widower Mormon.1914, Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Letters of a Woman Homesteader, Houghton Mifflin Company, pages 3–4:
‘Ever since I was sixteen men have been making love to me.’1941, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, Up at the Villa, Vintage, published 2004, page 24: