true love

Noun

true love (countable and uncountable, plural true loves)

1. (uncountable, originally) Feelings of love that are adhered to faithfully, or the faithful manifestation of such feelings.
   • I shall be forsworn, which is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love, […]1595–1596, William Shakespeare, Loues Labour's loſt, act I, scene ii
   • What are the joys wealth and honours bestow?
     Do they endure like true love's steady glow?1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 542
2. (countable, originally) A lover who is faithful to the object of his or her affection or faithfully loved themselves.
   • I leant my back unto an aik,
     I thought it was a trusty tree;
     But first it bow’d, and fyne it brak,
     Sae my true love did lightly me.1765, “Waly Waly, Love Be Bonny”, as quoted in Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and Other Pieces of Our Earlier Poets (1905), Thomas Percy (editor)
   • The first day of Christmas
     My true love sent to me
     A partridge in a pear tree.c. 1780, unknown author, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, in Mirth Without Mischief
3. (uncountable, by later reinterpretation) The form of romantic affection that is considered pure and wholly positive, not just based on feelings of lust and sex.
   • Some believe that true love doesn’t exist.
   • And as all true love is reciprocal, so also is true love lasting and indestructible; or, to “speak as a man,” even because it is the very inmost life of humanity, it is, therefore, true unto death.1847, Friedrich von Schlegel, translated by A. J. W. Morrison, The Philosophy of Life, and Philosophy of Language: In a Course of Lectures, page 38
4. (countable, by later reinterpretation) The unique individual for whom one feels such affection.
   • He was my one true love.
   • Yellow is the colour of my true love’s hair
     In the morning when we rise.1965, “Colours”, performed by Donovan
5. (uncountable, by later reinterpretation) The situation in which a couple is perfectly compatible and there is no better relationship, as set by a greater force such as God or fate.
6. (countable) A thing for which a person feels an intense love.
   • Cinematography is my only true love.