courtly love
"courtly-love" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“courtly love” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A mediaeval European conception of noble and chivalrous love, generally secret and between members of the nobility.
Corpus desk
Index EN-courtly-love · courtly love · English
courtly love · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | courtly love |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “courtly love” in English
Rare enough to double-check
courtly love is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A mediaeval European conception of noble and chivalrous love, generally secret and between members of the nobility.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for courtly love, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is courtly love, spelled C-O-U-R-T-L-Y- -L-O-V-E.
Definition
- 1A mediaeval European conception of noble and chivalrous love, generally secret and between members of the nobility.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how courtly love appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The impression that courtly love is out of date, long superseded by modern manners, is a lure blinding us to how the logic of courtly love still defines the parameters within which the two sexes relate to each other.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.