English · Idiom Historical

Cupboard Love

Preserved but no longer current.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Love from interested mo- tives. The allusion is to the love of children to some indulgent person who gives them something nice from her cupboard.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Tình yêu vì lợi ích

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Topics: Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “Cupboard Love” mean?

Love from interested mo- tives. The allusion is to the love of children to some indulgent person who gives them something nice from her cupboard.

Is “Cupboard Love” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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