Amoreus

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Full of tender feeling, romantic desire, or a readiness to fall in love with someone
2. Showing or stirred by passionate affection, longing, or a strong inclination toward another person
3. Inclined toward love and courtship, marked by fond yearning or sensual attraction

Etymology: The word is an older English spelling of "amorous," and it comes to English through French from Medieval Latin. Its core is the Latin "amor," meaning "love," joined to the adjective ending "-osus," meaning "full of." Medieval Latin "amorosus" therefore meant "full of love," and it passed into Old French as "amoreus," which English then adopted in the Middle English period. The meaning has narrowed over time. Its earliest sense was broad: a person or thing full of love, affectionate, or devoted. Only later did the sense shift toward romantic or sexual desire, which is why modern readers hear a particular flavour in it that the Latin root did not carry. The spelling changed too, as English writers settled on "-ous" and dropped the "-eus" ending, leaving "amorous" as the standard form today.