Definitions

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a drink credited with magical power; can make the one who takes it love the one who gave it

Etymologies

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Examples

  • “The Rose!” said Frank quietly, seeing that his new love-philtre was working well, and determined to strike while the iron was hot, and carry the matter too far to carry it back again.

    Westward Ho! 2007

  • But once more love and duty prevail; and when Ulana sweetly presents him the love-philtre he drains it at one draught, and immediately feeling the fire of the strong and potent drug, he becomes cheerful and receives his wife, who has adorned herself with a wreath of flowers with open arms.

    The Standard Operaglass Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas Charles Annesley

  • The despondent lover, after applying in vain to an Italian magician for a love-philtre, at length determines to adopt the bolder line of writing to his scornful lady.

    John Lyly John Dover Wilson 1925

  • The catastrophe of the pie, he explained, was in no way to be attributed to the love-philtre (which was composed of sifted sugar and cinnamon), but was due to the fact that instead of the philtre he had inadvertently handed his fair client a packet out of the next drawer, which contained ready-made-up doses of tartaric acid for immediate use in the case of small boys who had swallowed sixpences.

    The Right Stuff Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton Ian Hay 1914

  • As Isolda rushes in he staggers into her arms, and dies there to the phrases in which they had first spoken after drinking the love-philtre.

    Wagner Runciman, John F 1913

  • In Tristan it is not essential that the philtre is a true love-philtre, but here the case is different.

    Wagner Runciman, John F 1913

  • Brangaena protests, and warns Isolda against Melot, who has arranged this night hunt as a trap to catch Tristan; and she bewails the officiousness which led her to substitute the love-philtre for the poison.

    Wagner Runciman, John F 1913

  • The name given to this was _hippomanes_, and it was supposed to act as a powerful love-philtre.

    The Aeneid of Virgil Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor 70 BC-19 BC Virgil 1902

  • "I poured your own love-philtre into it, that you sold me at the agricultural show, don't you re-member?"

    Jude the Obscure 1896

  • Laughing again she said: "I poured your own love-philtre into it, that you sold me at the agricultural show, don't you re-member?"

    Jude the Obscure 1894

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