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to make love

to make love

388 5.3
Have sex with someone you love or care about
  • phrasal verb
  • /meɪk lʌv/
  • NSFW
: hacer el amor
  • - I want to make love to my wife!
  • never make love

I mean, we hug and we kiss and Make Love and that's great.

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Examples

Synonyms

to have sex
vsto make love
  • NSFW
∞ 3.0

To touch each other's private parts for physical pleasure

places that physical act specifically as an expression of love
to fuck
vsto make love
  • Offensive
∞ 9.9

To have sex with someone

softens the act into an intimate, loving expression
to sleep with
vsto make love
  • NSFW
∞ 7.4

To have sex with someone

leans more toward expressing loving feeling rather than neutral occurrence
to get laid
vsto make love
  • Offensive
203 9.9

To have sex with someone, usually in a short, casual way

means a loving, affectionate encounter rather than a casual one
to screw
vsto make love
  • Offensive
112 9.9

To have sex with someone, said as a rude word

uses loving, affectionate framing rather than blunt, crude language
to sleep together
vsto make love
  • NSFW
90 7.4

Have sex with another person, often when not married

highlights affection and loving intent rather than simply relationship status
to bed
vsto make love
  • NSFW
88 9.0

To have sex with someone

is more romantic and emphasizes affection, not just the act
to hump
vsto make love
  • Offensive
60 9.9

To have sex with someone, used as a rude word

frames the act as an expression of love and tenderness instead
to do it
vsto make love
  • NSFW
52 9.8

To have sex with someone

adds a sense of romantic affection missing in the informal phrase
to have intercourse
vsto make love
  • NSFW
45 8.1

To have sex with someone

casts the activity as affectionate and loving rather than only factual
to lie with
vsto make love
  • NSFW
43 9.1

To have sex with someone

casts the same action as an emotional, loving expression rather than formal
to be intimate
vsto make love
  • NSFW
41 7.9

Have sex with someone

emphasizes romantic affection more strongly than mere closeness
to get it on
vsto make love
  • Offensive
34 9.3

To have sex with someone

frames the same act as motivated by love or affection
to love
vsto make love
  • NSFW
24 8.6

To have sex with another person

is more clearly framed as an act done from deep affection
to sex
vsto make love
  • NSFW
15 5.1

To have physical contact with someone for pleasure, usually in a casual way

emphasizes affectionate intent rather than casual physicality
to roll in the hay
vsto make love
  • NSFW
2 9.2

To have sex briefly in a casual way

suggests deeper romantic feeling rather than playful casualness
to eff
vsto make love
  • Offensive
1 9.9

To have sex with someone

actually expresses affectionate motivation rather than simple avoidance of harshness
to have it off
vsto make love
  • NSFW
1 9.9

To have sex with someone, used in informal British English

carries more romantic or loving implication than the casual British phrase
to have a go at it
vsto make love
  • Offensive
1 9.9

To have sex with someone

conveys emotional affection more clearly than the mild euphemism
to know
vsto make love
  • NSFW
1 9.9

To have sex with someone

is more intimate and romantic than the distant literary phrasing
to jazz
vsto make love
  • Offensive
1 9.9

To have sex with someone

expresses the act with clear romantic or affectionate purpose
to have it away
vsto make love
  • NSFW
9.9

To have sex with someone

stresses affectionate intent rather than casual sexual action

How Intimate

to make love
  • NSFW
388 5.3
to sleep together
  • NSFW
90 7.4
to hook up
  • NSFW
283 8.7
to make out
  • NSFW
263 8.1
to kiss
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

make love infinitive
made love past
made love past participle
making love present participle
makes love third person singular

Morphology

make + love

The verb 'make' (perform/create) plus the noun 'love' (affection) gives a plausible compositional sense of ‘performing an act of love’, and many languages use the same collocation (e.g. faire l'amour, hacer el amor), so learners can often infer the sexual/euphemistic meaning. However, the phrase is conventionalized and euphemistic (not literally 'create love'), so its precise meaning ('have sex') is not fully predictable from the parts alone.

Etymology

Make love began as a gentle way to talk about showing affection—literally to make or create love between two people. Over time this polite image became a softer way to say 'to have sex', so today make love usually means 'to have sex' with feeling or affection.