first loves

Noun

first love (plural first loves)

1. (literally) One's first experience of the feeling of romantic love.
   • Could this be love?—pure, first love for a shopkeeper's daughter.1852, Wilkie Collins, chapter 7, in Basil
2. (broadly) The first person to be the object of one's romantic affection.
   • He thought how he would tell her . . . that his love for her had fallen off through his own unworthiness, and had returned to one who was in all respects less perfect than she, but who in old days, as she well knew, had been his first love.c. 1867, Anthony Trollope, chapter 29, in The Claverings
3. (broadly, idiomatic) The thing, place, or activity of which one is fondest; one's most fundamental interest or attachment.
   • He had a very strong and faithful attachment for places: Chatham, I think, being his first love in this respect.1897, Mamie Dickens, chapter 1, in Charles Dickens—My Father as I Recall Him