making love
Conjugal physical affection
Making love is a euphemism for sexual intercourse, emphasizing emotional intimacy and romantic connection rather than the physical act itself: They spent the night making love.
The phrase suggests tenderness and mutual affection, distinguishing it from cruder terms for sex.
In older usage, making love meant courting or flirting—speaking romantically to someone—without implying physical intimacy.
Sharing a bed, intimately
- consummationFinal completion or achievement
- conjugalOf marriage
- carnal knowledgeSexual intercourse, legally termed
- coitusSexual joining of bodies
copulation · union · coupling · intercourse · relations · mating · bedding
State of proximity
- vulnerabilityOpenness to harm
- tendernessGentle, caring quality
- trustConfidence in another
- connectionA joining or relation
bonding · nakedness · embrace · caress · whisper · touch · skin · breath
Intense wanting
- lustIntense carnal appetite
- ardorIntense emotional warmth
- sensualityPursuit of physical pleasure
- eroticismSexual desire's aesthetic quality
longing · yearning · fervor · carnality · libido · heat · ecstasy · rapture
sleeping together
Sharing a bed, intimately
- consummationFinal completion or achievement
- conjugalOf marriage
- carnal knowledgeSexual intercourse, legally termed
coitus · copulation · union · coupling · intercourse · relations · mating · bedding
closeness
State of proximity
- vulnerabilityOpenness to harm
- tendernessGentle, caring quality
- trustConfidence in another
connection · bonding · nakedness · embrace · caress · whisper · touch · skin · breath · warmth
desire
Intense wanting
- lustIntense carnal appetite
- ardorIntense emotional warmth
- sensualityPursuit of physical pleasure
eroticism · longing · yearning · fervor · carnality · libido · heat · ecstasy · rapture · craving
candlelight
Luminescence from burning wick
- honeymoonNewlyweds' celebratory vacation
- serenadeOutdoor romantic performance
- trystSecret romantic meeting
rendezvous · amour · courtship · passion · wooing · enchantment · roses · champagne · lingerie · boudoir
- Euphemismspass away, passed away, passed on, expecting, with child
- innuendoinnuendo, sexual innuendo, double entendre, double meaning, implied meaning
making loveabstinence
Voluntary forgoing of indulgences
sexual abstinence · celibacy · chastity · abstaining · cuddling
making lovefucking
Obscene emphatic modifier
having sex · casual sex · hooking up · one-night stand · rape
making lovefighting
Engaging in physical conflict
breaking up · divorcing · domestic violence · estrangement · separation
love, make, lovely, made, loving, loved, lover, maker, making