love-hate

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English

WOTD – 13 February 2021

Etymology

The adjective is a calque of German Liebe-Hass (now more commonly Hassliebe (“love-hate relationship”)), from Liebe (“love; relationship of love”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ- (“to love”)) + Hass (“hate; hatred”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂d- (“anger; hatred”)).

The verb is derived from the adjective.

Pronunciation

Adjective

love-hate (not comparable)

  1. (originally psychoanalysis) Of a relationship: involving feelings of both love and hate, often simultaneously.
    • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Varren Codex entry:
      The krogan have had a love-hate relationship with varren for millennia, alternately fighting them for territory and embracing them as treasured companions.
    • 2013 June 4, Dwight Garner, “A Literary Mind, Under the Spell of Drugs and a MacBook”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:
      I loathe reviews in which a critic claims to have love-hate feelings about a work of art. It’s a way of having no opinion at all. But I love and hate “Taipei.”
    • 2018 November 14, Jesse Hassenger, “Disney Goes Viral with an Ambitious, Overstuffed Wreck-It Ralph Sequel”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 21 November 2019:
      Still, the movie [Ralph Breaks the Internet] manages to locate some gentle satire in our culture's love-hate relationship with the internet. At one point, Ralph must attain a certain level of viral popularity, assisted by the BuzzFeed-esque content guru Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), and the movie is savvy about how accidental spikes in fame can turn into cynical algorithm manipulation.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

love-hate (third-person singular simple present love-hates, present participle love-hating, simple past and past participle love-hated)

  1. (transitive) To feel both love and hate (for someone or something), often simultaneously.
    • 2022, Jordan Castro, The Novelist‎, Catapult, →ISBN:
      […] Eric got to act out his resentment while also hating himself, really love-hating himself, and he got to do it while masquerading as a warrior for the less fortunate!

Translations

References

  1. ^ “love-hate, n.” under “love, n.1”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2008; “love-hate, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ Compare “love-hate, v.” under “love, n.1”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2008.

Further reading

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