a. and sb. [ad. Gr. ἐρωτικ-ός, f. ἔρως, ἔρωτ-ος sexual love. Cf. Fr. érotique.]
A. adj. Of or pertaining to the passion of love; concerned with or treating of love; amatory.
1651. Charleton, Ephes. & Cimm. Matrons, II. (1668), Pref. G ij b. That Erotic passion is allowed by all learned men to be a species of Melancholy.
a. 1789. Burney, Hist. Mus. (ed. 2), I. v. 61. These modes had other … dependent on them, such as the Erotic or amorous.
1823. trans. Sismondi’s Lit. Eur. (1846), I. xvi. 448. The lyric and erotic poets of his country.
1850. Sir J. Stephen, Eccl. Biog., I. 158. Arising from these erotic dreams, he suspended at her shrine his secular weapons.
1865. Hook, Lives Abps., III. i. § 9. 101. The common language of civility, as addressed to a lady, was erotic.
B. sb. a. An erotic or amatory poem. b. [after sbs. in -IC, repr. Gr. -ικὴ (τέχνη).] A ‘doctrine’ or ‘science’ of love.
1858. Sat. Rev., V. 266/1. A lecture on popular erotics from the authoress. Ibid. (1862), 8 Feb., 150. Religious erotics are something worse than an offence against taste.
1872. M. Collins, Plunges for Pearl, III. viii. 193. Instruction in the famous science of erotic.
1888. Athenæum, 18 Aug., 214/2. A strange doctrine of ‘spiritual wives’—a mystical erotic. Ibid., 215/1. The sublime erotic, free from all passional instincts.
Hence † Erotical a. Obs., of the nature of, or pertaining to, sexual love. Erotically adv., in an erotic manner; in an erotic sense. Eroticism [+ -ISM], erotic spirit or character.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., III. ii. I. ii. Jason Pratensis writes copiously of this Erotical love.
1882–3. Schaff, Encycl. Relig. Knowl., I. 398. Others [understand it (Song of Solomon)] erotically.
1881. Sat. Rev., 9 July, 53/1. The religious eroticism of Redi. Ibid. (1885), 11 April, 483/1. This martyr [Mme. de Montifaud] to eroticism.
