Paramour Meaning: What Does Paramour Mean?

What Does Paramour Mean?

Paramour is a noun with three layers of meaning, stacked by history:

1. An illicit lover — the dominant modern sense. A paramour is someone’s secret romantic partner, especially when one or both are married to other people. Dictionaries define it plainly: “an illicit lover, especially of a married person.” The secrecy is baked into the word; a paramour is almost never an openly acknowledged partner.

2. Any lover — the broader, older sense. In earlier centuries, “paramour” could simply mean a sweetheart or darling, with no scandal attached. This usage is now considered archaic, but you’ll meet it constantly in older literature.

3. A beloved — the oldest and most surprising sense. In medieval religious writing, women used “paramour” of Christ and men of the Virgin Mary, as the ultimate object of devoted love. The word began in worship before it ever touched scandal.

What makes “paramour” fascinating is the journey between these senses — from sacred devotion to secret romance. Few words have fallen so far, or so romantically, as this one. Its story rhymes with beloved, another love-word whose meaning shifted across the centuries.

How Do You Pronounce Paramour?

/ˈpærÉ™mÊŠÉ™r/ — PAR-uh-moor, with the stress on the first syllable. The middle syllable is a quick, unstressed “uh,” and the ending rhymes with “moor” or “tour.” In British English you’ll sometimes hear /ˈpærəˌmÊŠÉ™/ (PAR-uh-moo-uh), with the final “r” softened. The plural is paramours — just add an “s.”

The French flavor is no accident: say it with the ghost of par amour behind it, and the pronunciation almost explains itself. Learners sometimes stress the second syllable (par-uh-MOOR), but standard dictionaries place the stress firmly on PAR — think of it as rhyming loosely with “glamour,” its fellow French-born cousin, which follows the same stress pattern.

Where Did the Word Come From?

“Paramour” began not as a noun but as an adverbial phrase: Old French par amour — literally “by love” or “through love” (par, “by/through,” from Latin per; amour, “love,” from Latin amor). In the 1300s it meant “passionately, with strong love or desire” — to love par amour was to love ardently.

English absorbed the phrase whole around 1250–1300, first as an adverb (“loving paramours,” i.e., loving passionately) and then, by a natural slide, as a noun for the person loved that way. The phrase fused into a single word, the meaning narrowed from “one loved passionately” to “a secret lover,” and the adverbial use died out entirely, leaving only the noun we know today.

It’s a textbook case of how phrases become words: par amour → paramour, the space closing as the meaning shifted — the same kind of fusion that gave English so many of its French-born terms after the Norman Conquest.

The timing matters. After 1066, French was the language of England’s courts, aristocracy, and romance literature for nearly 300 years. Love-words flowed from French into English in a steady stream — amour itself, romance, passion, desire — and “paramour” arrived with that same tide. It entered as courtly vocabulary, the language of knights and ladies, which is why it still carries that faint perfume of medieval romance even in its most scandalous modern uses.

Paramour Through History

Medieval devotion (1300s): The earliest English uses are tender, not scandalous. In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1387–1400) and Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (1485), “paramour” moves between passionate love and devoted love. Religious writers used it for the soul’s love of Christ — the par amour that was worship itself.

Courtly love era: In the tradition of courtly love, a knight’s “paramour” was the lady he served with idealized, often unattainable devotion. The secrecy so central to the modern meaning was already there — courtly love was by definition adulterous or impossible — but it was ennobled rather than condemned.

Early modern narrowing (1500s–1700s): As “lover” and “sweetheart” took over everyday affection, “paramour” slid downmarket into its modern sense: the kept mistress, the secret affair. Shakespeare uses it both ways — tenderly in some plays, mockingly in others — capturing the word mid-fall. By the 18th century, calling someone a paramour was an accusation, not a compliment, and novelists of the period deployed it exactly that way: the paramour was the character polite society whispered about.

Modern survival: Today the word lives in three refuges — literature (where its archaic flavor is an asset), law (divorce and scandal cases still say “paramour” where plain speech would say “affair partner”), and period drama, where it instantly signals “historical romance.”

Paramour vs Similar Words

Word	Meaning	How it differs from paramour
Lover	Romantic partner	Neutral and general; a paramour is specifically secret or illicit
Mistress	Woman in a long-term affair with a married man	Gendered (female) and implies a sustained arrangement; paramour works for any gender
Sweetheart	Darling, loved one	Warm and open; the opposite register — no secrecy at all
Beloved	Deeply loved person	Tender and respectable; paramour’s oldest sense, before the fall
Amour	Love affair (from French)	Names the affair; paramour names the person

The word’s closest modern cousin is probably “affair partner,” but that clinical phrase has none of paramour’s velvet — which is exactly why writers still reach for the old word. For the modern vocabulary of secret relationships, see infidelity.

Examples in Sentences

• Modern/literary: “The tabloids claimed the actor was meeting his paramour at a countryside hotel.”
• Legal: “The divorce filing named her husband’s paramour as a co-respondent.”
• Historical fiction: “In the candlelit gallery, the queen received her paramour behind a screen of courtiers.”
• Archaic (beloved sense): “The medieval mystic wrote of Christ as her heavenly paramour.”
• Figurative: “Gossip columnists still use ‘paramour’ when ‘boyfriend’ sounds too ordinary for a scandal.”

Notice the register: “paramour” elevates even gossip. It’s the tuxedo of affair vocabulary — the same facts in plainer words would sound merely sordid.

Is Paramour Still Used Today?

Rarely in conversation, constantly in print. You will almost never hear “paramour” at a dinner table — it would sound theatrical or mocking. But the word is far from dead:

• Journalism: scandal reporting loves it; “paramour” makes an affair sound like history.
• Law: court filings and older statutes still use it as a term of art.
• Literature & film: period pieces use it for authentic flavor.
• Crosswords: ask any solver — “paramour” is crossword gold, the elegant answer to “secret lover (8).”

Its rarity is now part of its power. Using “paramour” signals that you know the word’s weight — it’s a deliberate stylistic choice, never an accident. That self-awareness is why the word survives: English keeps a few such words in a glass case, taken out only for special occasions.

There’s also a practical reason writers cling to it: precision. “Affair partner” is clunky, “lover” is vague, “mistress” is gendered — “paramour” says “secret lover of a married person, either sex” in a single elegant word. When you need exactly that meaning and you want it to sound like literature rather than a police report, nothing else quite does the job.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does paramour mean?
A paramour is a lover — usually a secret or illicit lover, especially of a married person. In older usage it could also mean any sweetheart or, in religious writing, a beloved.

How do you pronounce paramour?
PAR-uh-moor (/ˈpærəmʊər/), stress on the first syllable.

What is the origin of paramour?
From Old French par amour (“by love, through love”), first recorded in English around 1250–1300. It began as an adverb meaning “passionately” and became a noun for the person loved that way.

Is paramour a positive or negative word?
In modern use, negative or scandalous — it implies secrecy and usually infidelity. Its older senses (sweetheart, devotional beloved) were positive but are now archaic.

What’s the difference between a paramour and a mistress?
“Mistress” specifically means a woman in a sustained affair with a married man. “Paramour” is gender-neutral and can describe any secret lover, male or female.

Can a man be called a paramour?
Yes. Unlike “mistress,” paramour applies to any gender — a woman’s male lover is her paramour just as naturally.

What is the plural of paramour?
Paramours.

Is paramour still used in modern English?
Rarely in speech, but alive in journalism, law, literature, and period drama — anywhere a writer wants “secret lover” to sound elegant or historical.

What did paramour mean in medieval times?
Originally “one loved passionately,” including devotional use — medieval writers called Christ or the Virgin Mary their paramour. The scandalous sense developed later.

Is paramour French?
It comes from French (par amour), but it has been an English word for 700+ years — it’s as English now as “beef” or “beauty,” fellow French imports.

What is a paramour in legal terms?
In legal language, a paramour is the third party in an adultery case — the person with whom a married spouse had an affair. Older divorce filings and some statutes still use the term formally.

Why do newspapers say “paramour” instead of “lover”?
Because it sounds more dramatic and historical. “Paramour” turns a celebrity affair into a story; “lover” just states a fact. Editors use the old word precisely for its whiff of scandal and velvet.

Source: For the full definition, pronunciation, and par amour etymology, see Dictionary.com’s entry on “paramour”.