Dictionary

love-lock en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A padlock symbolizing two people's love for each other.
   • In the early 2000s, two of Paris' famous bridges were transformed into what are called “Love Bridges,” their railings completely covered with “love-locks,” padlocks on which couples from around the world carve their initials before attaching them and then throwing the keys into the Seine as a declaration of undying passion. 2014, Joan DeJean, How Paris Became Paris, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN, page 208:
2. (alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of lovelock.
   alt of lovelock
   • These love-locks, or ear-locks, in which too many of our nation have of late begun to glory, whatever they may seem to be in the eyes and judgement of many humorous, singular, effeminate, ruffianly, vain-glorious or time-serving persons, who repute and deem them a very generous, necessary, beautiful, and comely ornament; […] 1818, Samuel Johnson, quoting William Prynne, Unloveliness of Love-Locks, quoted in A Dictionary of the English Language:
   • “Do you see anything there?” I looked at the broad plumed hat, the curling love-locks, the white lace collar, and the straight, severe face which was framed between them. 1901, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 13, in The Hound of the Baskervilles:

Forms

Synonyms

love lock · love padlock