Word.ws English Dictionary

anteros

anteros noun: the counterlove or affectionate response a philerast gives to the love of an erastes.

Noun

anteros (uncountable)

  1. (historical, Ancient Greece) The counterlove or affectionate response a philerast gives to the love of an erastes.
    • The loved one, in turn, thus subject to the fiery soul of the lover, experiences anteros, a counterlove whose calm consent amounts to very filial affection […]1987, Julia Kristeva, Tales of love, page 66

Forms of anteros

alternative formanterôs
alternative formanterōs

Origin of anteros

From Ancient Greek ἀντέρως (antérōs), reputedly coined by Plato. That in turn comes from ἀντί (antí, “against”) + ἔρως (érōs, “love”), hence the translation as counterlove.

Questions about anteros

What does anteros mean?
Anteros means the counterlove or affectionate response a philerast gives to the love of an erastes.
What part of speech is anteros?
Anteros is a noun.

Words near anteros in the dictionary

  1. anteroposteriority
  2. anteroposteriorly
  3. anteroproximal
  4. anteroproximally
  5. anterorolandic
  6. anteros
  7. anteroseptal
  8. anteroseptum
  9. anterostapedial
  10. anterostriid
  11. anterostriids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anteros (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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