love knot

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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So called from being used as a token of love, or as a pledge of mutual affection.

Noun

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love knot (plural love knots)

  1. A knot or bow, as of ribbon.
    • 1766, Oliver Goldsmith, chapter 4, in The Vicar of Wakefield:
      They kept up the Christmas carol, sent true love-knots on Valentine morning, eat pancakes on Shrove-tide, shewed their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on Michaelmas eve.
    • 1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 1, stanza III, page 46:
      He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there / But the landlord's black-eyed daughter, / Bess, the landlord's daughter, / Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.