Meaning
An openly affectionate couple - inseparable, cosying in public, and entirely unembarrassed about any of it. The plural noun is nearly always bestowed by onlookers, half in mockery and half in envy, and almost never claimed for oneself. Teasing-affectionate; the related verb phrase is bill and coo, from the birds' own behaviour. Regional use: General English; from the bird's name.
Origin
The lovebird is real: Agapornis, a genus of nine small African parrots, thirteen to seventeen centimetres of monogamous devotion, named for the strong pair bonds and the long hours mated pairs spend sitting together - Greek agape, love, plus ornis, bird. The birds' reputation did the rest: English had transferred the name to doting humans by the nineteenth century, and the modern usage note in Wiktionary gives one of an openly affectionate couple, usually plural. Joey Tribbiani's 1999 instruction on Friends - let these two lovebirds get back down to business - is the citation on file, and about the right register: the word comes with a leer and a smile. The genus also supplies aviculture's favourite pets, which keeps the literal sense in every pet shop.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a pair of lovebirds
- bill and coo
- young lovebirds
Usage Examples
- The whole office played along when the two lovebirds booked the same conference hotel.
- Grandparents, the registrar said, were the worst lovebirds of all - fifty years and still billing.
- Two lovebirds at the back of the bus, sharing one set of earphones, promoted the entire route.