Limerence

//ˈlɪməɹəns// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An involuntary romantic infatuation with another person, especially combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one's feelings reciprocated. countable, uncountable

    "I first used the term ‘amorance’ then changed it back to ‘limerence’ […]. It has no roots whatsoever. It looks nice. It works well in French. Take it from me it has no etymology whatsoever."

Synonyms

All synonyms
infatuation

Example

More examples

"I first used the term ‘amorance’ then changed it back to ‘limerence’ […]. It has no roots whatsoever. It looks nice. It works well in French. Take it from me it has no etymology whatsoever."

Etymology

From limer- (“a coined, arbitrary first element”) + -ence. Coined by American psychologist Dorothy Tennov in 1977 as an arbitrary euphonious replacement or alteration of the word amorance.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.