ADORE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does adore mean? 

• ADORE (verb)
  The verb ADORE has 1 sense:

1. love intensely

  Familiarity information: ADORE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ADORE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they adore    ... he / she / it adores   
Past simple: adored   
Past participle: adored   
-ing form: adoring   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Love intensely

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Context example:

he just adored his wife

Hypernyms (to "adore" is one way to...):

love (have a great affection or liking for)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "adore"):

fetishize (make a fetish of)

hero-worship; idolise; idolize; revere; worship (love unquestioningly and uncritically or to excess; venerate as an idol)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s to INFINITIVE
Somebody ----s INFINITIVE

Sentence examples:

Sam cannot adore Sue
Sam and Sue adore the movie

Derivation:

adorable (lovable especially in a childlike or naive way)

adorer (someone who admires a young woman)

 Context examples 

“I'm an umble individual to give you her elth,” proceeded Uriah, “but I admire—adore her.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“I ought to be ashamed of myself,” she said. Then added, with the whimsical smile I adored, “but I am only one, small woman.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

If you find yourself away from home on this day, your trip will go well—you seem to be building a community of adoring friends or fans.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Louisa said he was "a love of a creature," and she "adored him;" and Mary instanced his "pretty little mouth, and nice nose," as her ideal of the charming.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Hugo demanded a potion to make Zara adore him, and one to destroy Roderigo.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

One day, palm branch in hand, and his crowd of adoring devotees behind him, he led us down to his hidden work-shop and took us into the secret of his plans.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You will be adored in Highbury.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

With a graver look and voice she then added, 'I do not mean to defend Henry at your sister's expense.' So she began, but how she went on, Fanny, is not fit, is hardly fit to be repeated to you. I cannot recall all her words. I would not dwell upon them if I could. Their substance was great anger at the folly of each. She reprobated her brother's folly in being drawn on by a woman whom he had never cared for, to do what must lose him the woman he adored; but still more the folly of poor Maria, in sacrificing such a situation, plunging into such difficulties, under the idea of being really loved by a man who had long ago made his indifference clear.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

An illusion that won't convince is a palpable lie, and that's what grand opera is to me when little Barillo throws a fit, clutches mighty Tetralani in his arms (also in a fit), and tells her how passionately he adores her.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)