What does belove mean?
Belove is an archaic English verb meaning simply to love — to feel deep affection for someone or something, or to hold it dear. Formed with the prefix be- attached to love, it was in ordinary use during the Middle English and Early Modern English periods but has since fallen out of the living language, surviving only in historical literature, facsimile editions, and deliberately antiquated prose. Its most visible modern descendant is the adjective and noun beloved, which preserves the idea of being loved rather than the act of loving itself. Readers who encounter belove today will almost always find it in Shakespearean-era writing or in older biblical translations, where constructions such as 'he did belove her' were unremarkable. Though obsolete, it remains a useful window into how English builds verbs with prefixes, and into the way a language can retire a common word while keeping its derivatives in daily circulation.
verbTo love; to hold dear. An archaic or obsolete English verb, now rarely used outside historical texts.
- To love; to hold dear (archaic/obsolete)
"She did belove him with a devotion that never wavered through the long years."
"He did belove his garden above all earthly pleasures."
"The old chronicler wrote that the king belove'd peace more than conquest."
'Belove' is the vanished verb behind 'beloved' — we kept the adjective and let the action it described quietly fade away.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of belove
Belove derives from Middle English, formed by adding the prefix be- to the Old English verb lufian ('to love'), which traces back through Proto-Germanic to the Indo-European root *leubh-, meaning 'to care for' or 'to desire'. This ancient root also produced English words such as believe, lief, and libido, making them distant cousins of belove. The verb was current in Middle and Early Modern English before falling into obsolescence, leaving its participial derivative beloved as the principal survivor of the family.
Related word forms
How belove is actually used
Strictly archaic; encountered mainly in Early Modern English texts such as Shakespeare-era writing and older translations of scripture. Using it today is deliberately archaic or poetic in effect.
Easily confused with belove
Beloved is the surviving adjective/noun meaning 'much loved person or thing', while belove is the archaic verb from which it derives.