Alloromantic

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˌæ.ləʊ.ɹə(ʊ)ˈmæn.tɪk/

Definitions

1. Someone who experiences romantic attraction toward people other than themselves, or the capacity to feel such attraction
2. A person capable of feeling romantic love or desire directed toward others rather than exclusively toward themselves
3. An individual with the ability to experience romantic emotions and attractions toward people outside of themselves

Etymology: "Alloromantic" is a recent coinage, built from the Greek prefix "allo-", meaning "other" or "different," joined to "romantic." It belongs to the vocabulary of the asexual and aromantic communities, where it names people who do experience romantic attraction, in contrast to aromantic people, who do not. The prefix does the contrasting work: a person who is alloromantic is oriented toward others, while the aromantic is not. The formation follows a pattern that also produced terms such as "alloromantic" and its partner "aromantic," in which the "a-" (meaning "not") is the negative counterpart to a positive term. Because the word was made within online communities that were working out how to describe their own experiences, its meaning was tailored to a distinction that older language had no single word for. Before such terms existed, people who felt romantic attraction had no need of a label, since it was assumed to be the default.