paramour
a secret lover
TRANSLATION
paramour = der Liebhaber/die Liebhaberin --- GOOGLE INDEX paramour: approximately 900,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Valentine's Day is an opportunity to bombard a PARAMOUR - or hoped-for paramour - with syrupy sentiment.
(BBC News)
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Humans have one-night stands, PARAMOURS and a 50 percent divorce rate.
(Washington Post)
(BBC News)
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Humans have one-night stands, PARAMOURS and a 50 percent divorce rate.
(Washington Post)
Did you
know?
paramour
noun
- a lover, especially the illicit partner of a married person
(Oxford Dictionary)
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Paramour is the noun use of the adverbial phrase "par amour," meaning with strong love or desire (par = by/with + amour = love). It usually refers to a lover outside of the marriage, but it can refer to any person with whom one has a romantic relationship.
While paramour is applied less in everyday language, where other terms like lover and boyfriend/girlfriend are more common, it can often be found in literature, including of course Shakespeare (Remember that thou hast a wife; Then how can Margaret be thy paramour? - King Henry VI)
In the early 14th century, paramour was used as a term of endearment for Christ or the Virgin Mary in the sense of godly love and not romantic love. By the end of the century however, it took on the modern sense of mistress. Paramour usually refers to a woman, but what's to keep a woman from calling her lover a paramour?
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SYNONYMS
mistress, concubine, clandestine lover, lover, girlfriend
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"It's not unusual for powerful men to have paramours."
noun
- a lover, especially the illicit partner of a married person
(Oxford Dictionary)
---
Paramour is the noun use of the adverbial phrase "par amour," meaning with strong love or desire (par = by/with + amour = love). It usually refers to a lover outside of the marriage, but it can refer to any person with whom one has a romantic relationship.
While paramour is applied less in everyday language, where other terms like lover and boyfriend/girlfriend are more common, it can often be found in literature, including of course Shakespeare (Remember that thou hast a wife; Then how can Margaret be thy paramour? - King Henry VI)
In the early 14th century, paramour was used as a term of endearment for Christ or the Virgin Mary in the sense of godly love and not romantic love. By the end of the century however, it took on the modern sense of mistress. Paramour usually refers to a woman, but what's to keep a woman from calling her lover a paramour?
---
SYNONYMS
mistress, concubine, clandestine lover, lover, girlfriend
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"It's not unusual for powerful men to have paramours."
