Word of the Day for Sunday June 26, 2005 amative \AM-uh-tiv\, adjective: Pertaining to or disposed to love, especially sexual love; full of love; amorous. Theoretically, any given left-kisser should meet more right-kissers and, over an amative lifetime, or even good year in junior high, be subtly pressured to shift to the right in order to land a wet one -- or just avoid a broken nose. No? --Donald G. McNeil, Jr., "Pucker Up, Sweetie, and Tilt Right," [1]New York Times, February 13, 2003 In the spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of another nap even more often than it does to amative imaginings, Tennyson to the contrary notwithstanding. --"Touch of Spring Fever Makes Whole World Kin," [2]Science News, May 23, 1931 Well, poetry has been erotic, or amative, or something of that sort -- at least a vast deal of it has -- ever since it stopped being epic. --Helen Deutsch, "Death, desire and translation: on the poetry of Propertius," [3]TriQuarterly, March 22, 1993 _________________________________________________________ Amative comes from Medieval Latin amativus, "capable of love," from the past participle of Latin amare, "to love." References 1. http://www.nytimes.com/ 2. http://www.sciencenews.org/ 3. http://www.triquarterly.org/ Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=amative Note: Audio pronunciation available only to Premium members. To learn more about the benefits of Premium membership, visit our site: http://dictionary.reference.com/premium/?r=9