make love:
Or: make-love-to .ETYMOLOGY: Entered the English language towards the end of the 16 th century as a translation of the French faire l'amour or the Italian far lamore . From the 16 th century to the mid-20 th century, it meant to initiate a sexual courtship or relationship known today as chatting up , wooing, or flirting. Lawrence Paros, The Erotic Tongue (1984) : 'Couples have been making-love in the sense of paying court or wooing one another since 1580. They've been making-love as we do IT only since around 1950. That meaning wasn't even formally recognized in our dictionaries until 1976 .' From another, unknow source: ' The change occurred at roughly the same time that the phrase 'make love not war first became popular, a correspondence which may not be altogether coincidental .' (Gershon Legman launched the slogan: ' Make love , not war ' in 1963, but the change had already started in the 1950s.)
1. To woo , to pay court; to express affection for.
QUOTES:
(1) Monte Rutledge (Ben Lyon) in Hell's Angels (1930): ' Never love a woman , just make-love-to her .'
(2) Gina (Lilli Palmer) to Alvah Jasper (Gary Cooper) in Cloak and Dagger (1946): ' Don't make-love-to me. Don't be somebody I like. If you feel like kissing me and I feel like kissing you, so we kiss . But don't be serious. In my job I kiss without feeling .'
(3) French count Leon (Melvyn Douglas) to the Soviet envoy Ninotchka (Greta Garbo) in Ninotchka (1939): ' Ninotchka! It's midnight. One half of Paris is making-love to the other-half .'
(4) Anna Kalman (Ingrid Bergman) furious at Philip Adams (Cary Grant) upon learning that he's not really married in Indiscreet (1958): ' How dare he make-love-to me and not be a married man .'
2. From the late-1950s onward, any sexual activity from petting to copulation ; to engage in amorous caressing.
3. Or: make-love-to / make-love-with , to have sexual-intercourse with. In this sense, analogous to the French faire l'amour . See copulation for synonyms.
QUOTES:
(1) Gaston (Louis Jordan) to Gigi (Leslie Caron) in Gigi (1958): ' The only people who make love all the time are liars .'
(2) Mrs. Flax (Cher) to her daughter Charlotte (Winona Ryder) learning to drive in Mermaids (1990): ' Charlotte, you drive like old people make love .'
(3) Dolworth (Burt Lancaster) in The Professionals (1966): ' Do you realise people are the only animals who make love face to face .'
(4) Barbara (Kathleen Turner) and Gavin (Danny DeVito) in The War of the Roses (1989):
-- Barbara Rose: ' Have you ever made angry love? '
-- Gavin D'Amato: ' Is there any other way? '
(5) Shyster lawyer Roland T. Flakfizer (John Torturo) flirting with the wealthy and older Mrs. Lilian Oglethorpe (Nancy Marchand) in Brain Donors (1992):
-- Roland: ' Mrs. Oglethorpe, you look wonderful. I could make-love-to you right here and now .'
-- Lilian: ' Roland, please! Let's keep this on a professional level .'
-- Roland: ' Very well then. I'll charge you fifty bucks a pop .'
(6) Harris B . Telemaker (Steve Martin) going away for the weekend with the much younger and not too bright SanDeE (Sarah Jessica Parker) in L.A. Story (1991):
-- Harris: ' SanDeE, I think it should just be a vacation , good friends. I don't think we should make love . All right? '
-- SanDeE: ' OK. We'll just have-sex .'
(7) Regina (Mimi Rogers) telling prison guard Collin Reeve (Billy Zane) about the husband she killed accidentally in Reflections in the Dark (1995): ' I loved him. God I loved him, and he loved me, desperately, completely, well, as best he could for a man who only knew how to make love-in a bed . At least he said it was love . He always said the right thing .'
(8) Annie Savoy's (Susan Sarandon) voice over monologue at the beginning of Bull Durham (1988): ' Making love is like hitting a baseball. You've just got to relax and concentrate .'
(9) Gershon Legman (1963): ' Make love , not war .'
(10) Pro birth-control slogan: ' Make love , not babies .'
Synonyms: bit-of-beef, a-bit-of-bouncy-bouncy, a bit of business, a bit of bum-dancing, a-bit-of-butt, a-bit-of-cauliflower, a bit of cock-fighting, a-bit-of-crumpet, a-bit-of-cuddle, a bit of cunt, a bit of curly greens, a-bit-of-fat, a bit of fish, a-bit-of-flat, a-bit-of-fork, a-bit-of-front-door-work, a-bit-of-fun, a-bit-of-hair, a-bit-of-how's-yer-father, a-bit-of-it, a-bit-of-nifty, a-bit-of-nobble, a-bit-of-nookey, a-bit-of-pork, a bit of quimsy, a-bit-of-raspberry, a-bit-of-rough, a-bit-of-rumpty-tumpty, a-bit-of-rumpy-bumpy, a-bit-of-rumpy-pumpy, a-bit-of-snug, a-bit-of-the-other, a-bit-of-skin, a-bit-of-snug-for-a-bit-of-stiff, a-bit-of-stiff, a-bit-of-the-old-in-and-out, a bit on a / the fork, a-dash-up-the-channel, a-knee-trembler, a little game of hide-the-sausage, a-little-o-the-one-with-tother, a-little-one-on-one, a piece of crumpet, a-poke-in-the-whiskers, a-poke-through-the-whiskers, a-spot-of-Cupids-archery, a spot hard breathing, a-squeeze-and-a-squirt, accommodate, act, the, act-of-androgynation, act-of-darkness, act-of-generation, act-of-kind, act-of-love, act-of-pleasure, act-of-shame, act-of-sport, Adam-and-Eve-it, adamize, afternoon-delight, all-the-way, all there but the most of you, amorous-congress, amorous-rites, ashes-hauled, assault-with-a-friendly-weapon, at-it, baby-making-love, bag, bag-up, bag-of-coke, bait-the-hook, balaclava, ball, balling, balling-the-jack, balls-eye, baloney-hop, baloney ride, bam-bam, banana, bananas-and-cream, bandicooting, bang, bang-away, bang-like-a-shithouse-door-(in-a-gale), bang like a shithouse door (in the wind), banging, banging away, Barrer-Moke, bash-leather, basket-making, bat-up, bawdy-banquet, bayonet-drill, BBQ'N, be-intimate-with, be-with-a-woman, beanfeast
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