Word.ws English Dictionary

cupboard love

cupboard love noun: insincere (and usually fickle) love pretended in the hope of gaining something useful in exchange.

Noun

cupboard love (uncountable)

  1. Insincere (and usually fickle) love pretended in the hope of gaining something useful in exchange.
    • This last and long-enduring passion for Mrs Thrale was, however, composed equally perhaps of cupboard-love, Platonic love, and vanity tickled and gratified from morn to night by incessant homage.1788, Anna Seward, Letter to Mrs Knowles April 20, 1788 read in Archibald Constable (editor), Letters of Anna Seward: Written Between the Years 1784 and 1807, Archibald Constable & Co, and Longman...
    • Besides, Sandy includes a little cupboard love in the detail of his sentiments. Nothing can be a more undeniable proof of the truth of this statement than the trials of Mrs. K—— and Mrs. D——. In both instances the lovers were nice, attentive fatherly men.1818, Thomas Brown, Bath, a satirical novel, page 114

cupboard love meaning in Tamil

cupboard love in Tamil

பொருளியல் பற்று

Examples of cupboard love in a sentence

  • I let them bombard me, grateful for the noisy bleating of their cupboard love.2006, Hilary Lloyd, A Necessary Killing, UKA Press, →ISBN, page 30:
  • You don't owe them anything Stephen, its just cupboard love...suddenly they need you...you said it yourself, they never contacted you before.2006, Neil A. Harris, The Council of Elders: The Halfling Chronicles Book 1, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 191:

Questions about cupboard love

What does cupboard love mean?
Cupboard love means insincere (and usually fickle) love pretended in the hope of gaining something useful in exchange.
What is cupboard love in Tamil?
Cupboard love in Tamil is பொருளியல் பற்று. See Cupboard love meaning in Tamil.
How do you use cupboard love in a sentence?
I let them bombard me, grateful for the noisy bleating of their cupboard love.
What part of speech is cupboard love?
Cupboard love is a noun.

Words near cupboard love in the dictionary

  1. cupbearer
  2. cupbearers
  3. cupbearing
  4. cupboard
  5. cupboard faith
  6. cupboard love
  7. cupboard-like
  8. cupboard-man
  9. cupboard-men
  10. cupboarded
  11. cupboardful

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cupboard love (page history and authors); cupboard love (Tamil Wiktionary) (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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Cite this entry: “cupboard love.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cupboard_love. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.