Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to love.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Amatory.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective obsolete amatory

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin amatorius, from amare to love.

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Examples

  • "amatorious" young men (as Milton says, perhaps at too great length) who cannot see a pretty girl without losing their hearts to her.

    The Mark Of Cain Andrew Lang 1878

  • It is, indeed, this unique contrast of a quaint element, childish crudities and nursery indecencies and “vain and amatorious” phrase jostling the finest and highest views of life and character, shown in the kaleidoscopic shiftings of the marvellous picture with many a

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • In his Convivium he calls Phaedrus the father of the amatorious discourse which he had commenced; and so in his Phaedrus

    Essays and Miscellanies 2004

  • The chief thing he himself teaches in his Banquet, where he shows us how we should use amatorious matters, turning our minds from sensible goods to things discernible only by the mind, that we ought not to be enslaved by the beauty of any body, study, or learning, but laying aside such weakness, should turn to the vast ocean of beauty.

    Essays and Miscellanies 2004

  • Again Sidney commits himself in this same piece to the pestilent heresy of prose-poetry, saying that verse is "only an ornament of poetry;" nor is there any doubt that Milton, whether he meant it or not, fixed a deserved stigma on the _Arcadia_ by calling it a "vain and amatorious poem."

    A History of Elizabethan Literature George Saintsbury 1889

  • By this last the reproach of vain and amatorious trifling which has been so often levelled at Carew is at once thrown back and blunted.

    A History of Elizabethan Literature George Saintsbury 1889

  • Milton, perceiving that such a poetic Fable might be objected to as fitter for a "mere amatorious novel" than for a controversial treatise, insinuates an apology for its introduction.

    The Life of John Milton Volume 3 1643-1649 David Masson 1864

  • Milton, perceiving that such a poetic Fable might be objected to as fitter for a “mere amatorious novel” than for a controversial treatise, insinuates an apology for its introduction.

    The Life of John Milton Masson, David, 1822-1907 1859

  • Thus mine author sung it to me; and, by the leave of those who would be counted the only grave ones, this is no mere amatorious novel (though to be wise and skilful in these matters men heretofore of greatest name in virtue have esteemed it one of the highest arcs that human contemplation circling upwards can make from the glassy sea whereon she stands); but this is a serious and deep verity, showing us that Love in Marriage cannot live nor subsist unless it be mutual.

    The Life of John Milton Volume 3 1643-1649 David Masson 1864

  • Thus mine author sung it to me; and, by the leave of those who would be counted the only grave ones, this is no mere amatorious novel (though to be wise and skilful in these matters men heretofore of greatest name in virtue have esteemed it one of the highest arcs that human contemplation circling upwards can make from the glassy sea whereon she stands); but this is a serious and deep verity, showing us that Love in Marriage cannot live nor subsist unless it be mutual.

    The Life of John Milton Masson, David, 1822-1907 1859

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