[f. prec.]
1. trans. To make a sweetheart of; to court, make love to.
1804. R. Anderson, Cumbld. Ball., 79. I yence sweethearted Madge o’ th’ Mill.
1861. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, III. 390. One of his mates sweethearted the servant.
1893. Baring-Gould, Cheap Jack Zita, II. 87. Mark Runham running after two girls, sweethearting both.
2. intr. To be, or act the part of, a sweetheart; to court a sweetheart, make love.
1798. T. Morton, Speed the Plough, V. i. (1800), 70. Remember how I used to let thee zit up all night a sweethearting.
1824. Mactaggart, Gallovid. Encycl., 444. Teevo,… one who learns the rules of affectation, who sweethearts with warmness seemingly.
1873. G. C. Davies, Mount. & Mere, xvi. 135. He had gone in the country for his Sunday outing, sweethearting.
1883. Harper’s Mag., July, 165/1. The lanes in which he has sweethearted.
1898. R. Kearton, Wild Life at Home, 53. I watched a pair of red-backed shrikes or butcher-birds, sweethearting.
Hence Sweethearting vbl. sb. and ppl. a.; also Sweethearter.
1812. Coleridge, in Lit. Rem. (1839), IV. 68. Then her Spanish sweet-hearting, doubtless in the true Oroondates style.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 379/2. It’s that I go for, love and sweet-hearting.
1854. R. S. Surtees, Handley Cross, lxxix. (1901), II. 276. Venting her spleen on Doleful and all dilatory sweethearters.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xxiii. There was this sweethearting after old Simon’s daughter.
1866. Morn. Star, 18 April, 4/5. The sweethearting portion of the audience.
1874. Lisle Carr, Jud. Gwynne, I. iv. 104. She remembered … how she and William had carried on in those happy sweethearting days.
1886. Hall Caine, Son of Hagar, I. vii. You Colebank chaps are famous sweethearters, I hear.
