What does amoretto mean?
An amoretto is a little Cupid — a small figure of the Roman god of love, typically shown as a chubby, winged boy armed with a bow and arrows. The word comes from Italian, where it means literally 'a little love', and it entered English usage mainly through art criticism and poetry. In painting and sculpture of the Renaissance and later periods, such figures appear constantly, fluttering around Venus at her birth or accompanying bridal and romantic subjects, and English writers adopted 'amoretto' (and its plural 'amoretti') to describe them. The term also took on a literary sense: Edmund Spenser's celebrated 1595 sonnet sequence is titled 'Amoretti', lending the word an association with short love poems. Today it is a rare word, met mostly in art-historical writing, and readers should take care not to confuse it with 'amaretto', the almond liqueur, which merely resembles it in spelling.
nounA little Cupid or love-god; a representation of an amor in small form, used especially as a decorative motif in art and literature.
- A little Cupid or love-god, especially as depicted in art or literature.
- (In literary use) a short love poem or sonnet of the kind collected in Spenser's Amoretti.
"The ceiling of the salon was painted with frolicking amoretti amid garlands of roses."
"Renaissance painters filled their canvases with winged amoretti hovering over bridal scenes."
"Her sonnet sequence was praised as a modern-day set of amoretti in the tradition of Spenser."
The plural 'amoretti' is considerably more familiar than the singular, largely because of Spenser's 1595 sonnet sequence of that title.
"Baroque ceilings teem with gilded amoretti tumbling through painted clouds."
Spenser titled his famous 1595 sonnet sequence 'Amoretti' — a whole book of love poems named after these little cupids.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of amoretto
Amoretto derives from Italian, formed from 'amore' (love) with the diminutive suffix '-etto', so that it literally means 'little love' — a natural name for a miniature Cupid. It was borrowed into English during the late sixteenth century, a period when Italian artistic and literary taste strongly influenced English culture. Its most famous early appearance is indirect but decisive: Edmund Spenser's sonnet sequence 'Amoretti' (1595) fixed the plural form in English literary vocabulary. The underlying root is Latin 'amor', which also gives English words such as 'amorous', 'amatory', and 'amateur'.
Related word forms
How amoretto is actually used
A rare and largely literary word, encountered chiefly in art history and discussions of Renaissance poetry. The plural 'amoretti' is more familiar than the singular, thanks to Spenser's sonnet cycle. It carries a decorative, romantic connotation and should not be confused with the liqueur 'amaretto'.
Easily confused with amoretto
Amaretto is a sweet Italian almond-flavoured liqueur, whereas amoretto is a small Cupid or love-god figure; the two words are unrelated in meaning despite their similar spelling.