make love

Verb

make love (third-person singular simple present makes love, present participle making love, simple past and past participle made love)

1. (euphemistic) To engage in sexual intercourse.
   • I caught them making love on my couch.
   • She takes just like a woman, yeah she does / She makes love just like a woman, yeah she does1966, Bob Dylan, “Just Like a Woman”, in Blonde on Blonde

   Synonyms:

   approach, cohabit, common, company, copulate, couple, engage in sex, exchange flesh, have intimate relations, have marital relations

2. (archaic) To make amorous approaches (to); to woo, romance, court.
   • So from thenceforth, when loue he to her made, / VVith better tearmes ſhe did him entertaine, / VVhich gaue him hope, and did him halfe perſvvade, / That he iunb time her ioyaunce ſhould obtaine.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 7, page 494
   • [S]carcely had they passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her subject cut up–her hand seized–her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious opportunity, declaring sentiments which must already be well known...1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter XV, in Emma: […], volume I, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, page 275

   Synonyms:

   address, beau, bedear, chase after, court, endear, make a move (on), pitch woo, put the moves on, romance