Definition of paramour
:an illicit lover
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Examples of paramour in a Sentence
- And faster than you can say "You've got mail!" he fell hard for his unseen paramour. —Kipp Cheng, Entertainment Weekly, 23 Oct. 1998
- His Vietnamese paramour was a young woman of remarkable beauty. —Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 1988
- As the vessel made sail immediately, and landed no part of their cargo, there seemed little doubt that they were accomplices of the notorious Robertson, and that the vessel had only come into the firth to carry off his paramour. —Walter Scott, The Heart of Midlothian, 1818
Recent Examples of paramour from the Web
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Written by Pierre de Marivaux (1688-1763), the play is one of those romantic intrigues involving charming paramours, scheming servants and much bustling in and out of rooms amid conspiratorial conversations.
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Too bad his paramour, Ellaria Sand, didn’t seem to learn from Oberyn’s mistake.
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Too bad his paramour, Ellaria Sand, didn’t seem to learn from Oberyn’s mistake.
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Why is Maci the one who has to shoulder the responsibility of divulging Ryan’s history to his paramours?
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A femme fatale will even break off an active mating session to turn around and wolf down her paramour, mid-coitus.
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For paramours of the peaks, an observation deck offers interpretative placards identifying the summits.
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Anita Pallenberg, the former girlfriend of Keith Richards and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, and — briefly — a paramour of Mick Jagger, died Tuesday at the age of 73.
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Admittedly, Megan (made both sympathetic and resolute by Kate Mara) is on-screen a lot more than her paramour: a German shepherd employed by the military to sniff out explosives.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'paramour.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
Paramour came to English from French (a language based on Latin), though the modern French don't use the word. Since par amour meant "through love", it implies a relationship based solely on love, often physical love, rather than on social custom or ceremony. So today it tends to refer to the lover of a married man or woman, but may be used for any lover who isn't obeying the social rules.
Origin and Etymology of paramour
Middle English, from par amour for the sake of love, willingly, from Anglo-French par amur
PARAMOUR Defined for English Language Learners
paramour
play
noun
Definition of paramour for English Language Learners
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: a person with whom someone is having a romantic or sexual relationship and especially a secret or improper relationship
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