Meaning
A snug home or hideaway where a couple, especially newlyweds or new lovers, enjoy each other's company; by extension any place where lovers meet, including a flat kept for a secret affair, as in Farlex's definition of a place where two people meet secretly to have a romantic affair. Mind the register: alongside the cozy-home sense, dictionaries record the illicit-affair sense. Hyphenated and closed spellings (love-nest, lovenest) also occur. A repeatedly repeated claim about a 1933 British political 'love nest' resignation could not be verified and is not asserted here. Regional use: Widespread in English; American show-business and tabloid origin, now general.
Origin
A transparent compound of love and nest. Its popularity is tied to the song 'Love Nest' from the Broadway musical Mary, a 1920 show with book and lyrics by Frank Mandel and Otto Harbach and music by Louis Hirsch: first performed at the Garrick Theatre in Philadelphia on April 5, 1920, it opened at Broadway's Knickerbocker Theatre on October 18, 1920 and ran 220 performances, and Wikipedia calls the song Hirsch's most successful, later the theme for the Burns and Allen radio show; a 1951 film took its title from it. In the 1920s and 1930s the phrase became a tabloid staple - the New York Evening Graphic's notorious headlines included 'Weed Parties in Soldiers' Love Nest'. Wiktionary labels the phrase colloquial and glosses it as a residence where a couple, particularly a newly cohabiting or married one, can enjoy each other's company; its earliest dated citation is only from 1980 (a Monroe memoir's 'Los Angeles love nest'), so dictionary citation records lag the song era by decades, and no source checked gives a first-attestation date. Farlex adds the secret-affair sense with the example of Sheila and Bob's midday rendezvous.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- love nests
- love shack
Usage Examples
- The newlyweds spent their first savings converting the attic flat into a love nest.
- The scandal broke when reporters photographed the minister entering a love nest across town.
- They kept a tiny love nest by the harbour, conveniently hidden from both their offices.