Meaning
Intense, idealizing romantic infatuation typical of children or young adolescents - the schoolyard crush. It flares quickly and usually fades quickly, resting on admiration or appearance rather than deep attachment, and adults often use the term half-dismissively about young people's relationships. Often belittling - calling someone's feelings puppy love can sound condescending. Hyphenate as puppy-love when used before a noun. Regional use: General English; earliest known evidence American.
Origin
The name plays on a puppy's eager, undiscriminating affection. It is old: the OED's earliest evidence is from 1810, in the Reporter newspaper of Brattleborough, Vermont, so the first known witness is American. The near-synonym calf love - joking that a young calf butts and nuzzles without any serious intent - follows closely: the OED's first evidence, dated 1823, is a passage by the Scottish novelist John Galt recalling his schooldays. Christine Ammer's American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms dates the expression to the first half of the nineteenth century and cites an 1834 novel by W. A. Carruthers in which a character declares he is done with mere calf-love. Calf love was the commoner Victorian label, but puppy love won out in the twentieth century, helped by its use for fleeting teen romance in fiction and pop songs; Freud, for one, pushed back against the sneer, stressing how durable first loves often prove.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- calf love
- puppy-love (attributive)
Usage Examples
- Everyone assumed it was just puppy love, yet Jenna and Miguel were still holding hands at their twenty-year school reunion.
- The film captures summer-camp puppy love perfectly: earnest letters, awkward dances, and a heartbreak that fades by the first day of school.
- He brushed off his son's devotion to the girl next door as puppy love, then winced at how patronizing the words sounded.