ENDEAR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does endear mean? 

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

1. make attractive or lovable

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• ENDEAR (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they endear    ... he / she / it endears   
Past simple: endeared   
Past participle: endeared   
-ing form: endearing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make attractive or lovable

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Context example:

This behavior endeared her to me

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

delight; please (give pleasure to or be pleasing to)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody PP

Derivation:

endearment (the act of showing affection)

 Context examples 

“And ought it not,” reflected Catherine, “to endear it to her husband? Yet the general would not enter it.”

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

They were developing in him, and the camp-life, replete with misery as it was, was secretly endearing itself to him all the time.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

His little failings would only have endeared him to you the more.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"There certainly are circumstances," said Willoughby, "which might greatly endear it to me; but this place will always have one claim of my affection, which no other can possibly share."

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

On the contrary, her plans and proceedings were more and more justified and endeared to her by the general appearances of the next few days.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Venus in Pisces is considered her best placement—ancient astrologers called her exalted in that sign—for the wise astrologers knew that Pisces allows her to exert her most loving, endearing qualities.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

The gentle manners and beauty of the cottagers greatly endeared them to me; when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathised in their joys.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

In this world the penalty is less equal than could be wished; but without presuming to look forward to a juster appointment hereafter, we may fairly consider a man of sense, like Henry Crawford, to be providing for himself no small portion of vexation and regret: vexation that must rise sometimes to self-reproach, and regret to wretchedness, in having so requited hospitality, so injured family peace, so forfeited his best, most estimable, and endeared acquaintance, and so lost the woman whom he had rationally as well as passionately loved.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Very precious to Jo was the friendship of the lads, their penitent sniffs and whispers after wrongdoing, their droll or touching little confidences, their pleasant enthusiasms, hopes, and plans, even their misfortunes, for they only endeared them to her all the more.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper, though no disposition could offer a greater contrast to his own, and though with his own he never appeared dissatisfied.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)