Word of the Day Archive
Thursday November 20, 2008
amatory \AM-uh-tor-ee; -tohr-\ , adjective:
of love; expressing love, especially sexual
She's cranky, self-absorbed and a compulsive flirt with a long series of amatory conquests to her record.
-- Carol Shields, His Kisses Taste Like Bubble Gum," review of The Love Letter, by Cathleen Schine, New York Times, May 27, 1991
Even Piejack, who harbors a delusion that his mangled hand has an amatory upside, is at heart a pedestrian perv, and Boyd, the telemarketer, is more an annoyance than the end of the world.
-- John Leland, Key Party," review of Nature Girl, by Carl Hiaasen, New York Times, December 2, 2002
Therese at first seems cut from familiar femme-fatale cloth, and Jack seems a direct descendant of a long line of noir chumps who follow their amatory urges down hell's rabbit hole.
-- Eddie Muller, The dangers of rescuing damsels in so-called distress," review of Belonging, by Ron Butlin, San Francisco Chronicle, June 30, 2003
by 1599, from Latin amatorius "of or pertaining to love," from Latin amator "lover"
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for amatory
