or amorette, subs. (old colloquial).—1. Originally a sweetheart: see quot. 1400; spec. (2) a mistress. [O.E.D: ‘Eng. AMORET having become obsolete the word has recently been re-adopted from the French’: see sense 4.] Whence (3) the concomitants of love: e.g., a love-knot, a love-sonnet, love-looks (see quot. 1590), and (in pl.) ‘love-tricks, dalliances’ (COTGRAVE) [Cf. AMORETTO (from the Ital.) = a lover, a sonnet, a SHEEP’S EYE.]
c. 1400. The Romaunt of the Rose, 4758. Eke as well by AMORETTES In mourning blacke as bright burnettes. Ibid., 892. Clad … alle in floures and in flourettes, Painted alle with AMORETTES.
1483. CAXTON, Geoffroy de la Tour, C. iv. Thought more to complaire and plese their AMORETTES … than to plese God.
1590. T. WATSON, Poems (1870), 171. Bestow no wealth on wanton AMORETS.
1590. T. LODGE, Rosalynde, Euphues’ Golden Legacie. Wryting AMORETS.
c. 1590. GREENE, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, xii. 8.
| Should … Phœbus scape those piercing AMORETS, | |
| That Daphne glanced at his deity? |
1590. GREENE, Francesco’s Fortunes [in Wks. viii., 160]. She alluring him with such wylie AMORETTES of a Curtizan.
1594. J. DICKENSON, Arisbas (1878), 71. Sweete AMORETS were chaunted.
1598. FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Amoretto, an AMORET, a little love, a wanton, a paramour.
1646. JOHN HALL, Poems, 35.
| In each line lie | |
| More AMORETTOES than in Doris eye. |
1651. Sarpi, 92. My AMORETS and wantonness.
1654. GAYTON, Festivious Notes on … Don Quixote, 47. The AMORETTO was wont to take his stand at one place where sate his mistress.
1794. J. WARTON, Sappho.
| When AMORETS no more can shine, | |
| And Stella owns she’s not divine. |
4. (modern).—AMOURETTE = a love-affair; an intrigue.
1865. CARLYLE, Frederick the Great, II. vii. ii. 161. A curious story about one of Prince Fred’s AMOURETTES.
1871. Pall Mall Gazette, 7 Feb., 11/2. The youthful AMOURETTES more or less scandalous.
