cupboard love

English

Noun

cupboard love (uncountable)

1. Insincere (and usually fickle) love pretended in the hope of gaining something useful in exchange.
   • 1788, Anna Seward, Letter to Mrs Knowles April 20, 1788 read in Archibald Constable (editor), Letters of Anna Seward: Written Between the Years 1784 and 1807, Archibald Constable & Co, and Longman, etc. (1811) p. 103,

     This last and long-enduring passion for Mrs Thrale was, however, composed equally perhaps of cupboard-love, Platonic love, and vanity tickled and gratified from morn to night by incessant homage.

   • 1818, Thomas Brown, Bath, a satirical novel‎^[1], page 114:

     Besides, Sandy includes a little cupboard love in the detail of his sentiments. Nothing can be a more undeniable proof of the truth of this statement than the trials of Mrs. K—— and Mrs. D——. In both instances the lovers were nice, attentive fatherly men.

   • 2006, Hilary Lloyd, A Necessary Killing, UKA Press, →ISBN, page 30:

     I stump down my field, not the lane past Mike's, and the ewes think it's feeding time. I let them bombard me, grateful for the noisy bleating of their cupboard love.

   • 2006, Neil A. Harris, The Council of Elders: The Halfling Chronicles Book 1, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 191:

     You don't owe them anything Stephen, its just cupboard love...suddenly they need you...you said it yourself, they never contacted you before.

Related terms

• cupboard faith

Translations

insincere love pretended in the hope of gaining something useful in exchange

• Irish: grá don ailp m, grá na hailpe m