WORD OF THE WEEK: An Amatory Affair

Summary: In honor of Valentine's Day, this week's vocabulary word is amatory. (Please note: Today's word entry is PG-13!)

WARNING: This week's word is rated PG-13!

In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd concentrate on an adult-oriented vocabulary word this week. It sounds just like a word we hear a lot around February 14th—amorous (meaning to have or to feel romantic love, or to behave in a loving fashion toward another). Both come from the same root word, amor, which is Latin for love.

While amorous implies physical love (if you know what I mean—wink-wink, nudge-nudge), it's been commonly adopted into the English language as a bit of a euphemism. Therefore it's more used and accepted than today's special word:

Amatory (A -ma - TOR - ee) – adj. expressing or relating to sexual love. There's just no other way to put it! It entered into the English language circa 1599.

My Valentine's Day present to my husband this year (along with the usual chocolate; he's a bigger chocolate-lover than even I am) was a fun set of dice with amorous phrases. When rolled in sequence, the dice construct a sentence that implies something amatory, although their words can simply be used as a more sensory than sensual experience. Say, there are two other related words that we hear a lot around this February holiday ....

Well, grown-ups, Happy Presidents Day!

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