Word.ws English Dictionary

Lovelace

Lovelace proper noun: a surname transferred from the nickname.

Proper noun

Lovelace (plural Lovelaces)

  1. A surname transferred from the nickname.

Noun

Lovelace (plural Lovelaces)

  1. A well-mannered libertine.
    • You are a dangerous young fellow—a kind of Lovelace who will make the Clarissas run after you instead of you running after them.1876, George Eliot, chapter 32, in Daniel Deronda, London: Blackwood

Forms of Lovelace

Proper noun
pluralLovelaces
alternative formLoveless
alternative formLowes
alternative formLowess
Noun
pluralLovelaces

Origin of Lovelace

From Middle English lufeless (“loveless”), possibly a nickname for a philanderer. In the libertine sense, refers to Robert Lovelace, a character in Samuel Richardson's 1748 novel Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady.

Questions about Lovelace

What does Lovelace mean?
Lovelace means a surname transferred from the nickname.
What part of speech is Lovelace?
Lovelace can be a proper noun or a noun.

Words near Lovelace in the dictionary

  1. Lovejoy
  2. Lovejoys
  3. lovekin
  4. lovekins
  5. Lovel
  6. Lovelace
  7. Lovelaces
  8. Lovelady
  9. Loveladys
  10. Loveland
  11. Lovelands

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Lovelace (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: “Lovelace.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lovelace. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.