Word.ws English Dictionary

light-o'-love

light-o'-love noun: an old dance tune, whose name made it a proverbial expression of levity, especially in love matters.

Noun

light-o'-love (plural lights-o'-love)

  1. An old dance tune, whose name made it a proverbial expression of levity, especially in love matters.
    • Best sing it to the tune of light o' love.c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  2. Someone who is inconstant in love; a flirt.
    • You light-o'-love, a word or two.1626 February 13 (licensing date; Gregorian calendar), Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Noble Gentleman”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey...
  3. A promiscuous woman; a prostitute; a mistress or female lover.
    • Thus they fared, one after another, as the light-o'-love dame introduced them into her chamber, so that no one ventured to come near her.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth
    • That is why a priest's light-o'-love is always some honest man's wife.1866, Various, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866, page 618

Forms of light-o'-love

plurallights-o'-love
alternative formlight o' love
alternative formlight-of-love

Questions about light-o'-love

What does light-o'-love mean?
Light-o'-love means an old dance tune, whose name made it a proverbial expression of levity, especially in love matters.
What part of speech is light-o'-love?
Light-o'-love is a noun.
What is the plural of light-o'-love?
The plural of light-o'-love is lights-o'-love.

Words near light-o'-love in the dictionary

  1. light-mindedly
  2. light-mindedness
  3. light-mouthed
  4. light-nanosecond
  5. light-nanoseconds
  6. light-o'-love
  7. light-of-love
  8. light-off temperature
  9. light-off temperatures
  10. light-polluted
  11. light-scattering photometry

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: light-o'-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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Cite this entry: “light-o'-love.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/light-o%27-love. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.