endearments
81honeylamb — This appears to be a simple combination of two vocative elements, both used as endearments but otherwise unconnected. ‘Honeylamb’ is used as an intimacy in The Pumpkin Eater, by Penelope Mortimer …
82-kins — Suffixes added to names or words to form a dirninutive. There is an etymological relationship with the chen in German words such as Liebchen, ‘sweetheart’. In The Word Child, by Iris Murdoch, a girl whose name is Thomasina is addressed… …
83-kin — Suffixes added to names or words to form a dirninutive. There is an etymological relationship with the chen in German words such as Liebchen, ‘sweetheart’. In The Word Child, by Iris Murdoch, a girl whose name is Thomasina is addressed… …
84love — Literary references, beginning with Chaucer, show that this term has been in use as an endearment since at least the fourteenth century. Originally it was used to a beloved person; in modern times, in Britain, it has become watered down into a …
85lovebirds — ‘Come up for air, you lovebirds,’ says someone to an amorous couple in Mariana, by Monica Dickens. In Diamonds are Forever, by Ian Fleming, James Bond and Tiffany Case are collectively addressed by the same term. The West African lovebird is a …
86moppet — A term of endearment used especially to a young girl. It derives from ‘mop’, which was a playful term used to a baby in the fifteenth century. It appears to have meant something like ‘you silly thing’ at that time. The diminutive form ‘moppet’ …
87my — This is frequently used as the opening word of an intimate or friendly vocative expression. When used as part of a true endearment to someone with whom the speaker is emotionally involved, ‘my’ appears to have its full possessive meaning. The… …
88naughty — Used as a vocative element in Shakespeare, this word has the force of ‘a thing of naught’, something totally worthless. ‘Thou naughty varlet’, in Much Ado About Nothing (4:ii) or ‘thou naughty knave’, in Julius Caesar (l:i) is thus a serious… …
89own, my — ‘What delight the words gave her,’ says Charlotte Yonge of her heroine, in The Heir of Redclyffe, when she is addressed by the man she loves as ‘my own’. ‘Own’ has long been used as an element in affectionate terms of address, emphasizing… …
90sugarpuss — Used by an older American woman to a younger in a friendly way in War Brides, by Lois Battle:‘Okay, sugarpuss, see y‘tomorra.’ The term combines two standard endearments …
