Word.ws English Dictionary

courtly love

courtly love noun: a mediaeval European conception of noble and chivalrous love, generally secret and between members of the nobility.

Noun

courtly love (uncountable)

  1. A mediaeval European conception of noble and chivalrous love, generally secret and between members of the nobility.
    • The impression that courtly love is out of date, long superseded by modern manners, is a lure blinding us to how the logic of courtly love still defines the parameters within which the two sexes relate to each other.2005, Slavoj Žižek, The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Women and Causality, Verso, →ISBN, page 89

Questions about courtly love

What does courtly love mean?
Courtly love means a mediaeval European conception of noble and chivalrous love, generally secret and between members of the nobility.
What part of speech is courtly love?
Courtly love is a noun.

Words near courtly love in the dictionary

  1. courtliness
  2. courtlinesses
  3. courtling
  4. courtlings
  5. courtly
  6. courtly love
  7. Courtmacsherry
  8. courtman
  9. courtmartial
  10. courtmartialed
  11. courtmartialing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: courtly love (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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