COURTING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Courting

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/kˈɔrtɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Court v. t. (past & past part. courted; pres. part. courting)

To endeavor to gain the favor of by attention or flattery; to try to ingratiate one's self with. "By one person, hovever, Portland was still assiduously courted."

To endeavor to gain the affections of; to seek in marriage; to woo. "If either of you both love Katharina... Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure."

To attempt to gain; to solicit; to seek. "They might almost seem to have courted the crown of martyrdom." "Guilt and misery... court privacy and solitude."

To invite by attractions; to allure; to attract. "A well-worn pathway courted us To one green wicket in a privet hedge."

Court v. i.

To play the lover; to woo; as, to go courting.

See images of 'Courting'

Etymology of 'Courting'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Courting" Quotes from Famous Books

... agitated; her glances were long and earnest, the pressure of her hand was full of affection, and yet they both acted before Fernanda as if she were already his affianced wife. And yet they had not uttered a word of love! But Luis knew he was not treating the lady he was courting fairly, and that he was acting criminally with regard to Don Pedro, his friend. He did not know how, or why, but his conscience told him that he was. Sometimes he tried to persuade himself that he had not taken ...

— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... coming—but he did not wait for her, nor did he look back while she was following him all the way home. And next Sunday he too went to church, and after meeting he started for home alone and she followed alone. He had never made any effort to speak to her alone, nor did he venture the courting pleasantries of other men. Only in his telltale eyes was his silent story plain, and she knew it better than if he had put it into words. In spite of her certainty, however, she was a little resentful that Sunday morning, for his slender figure climbed doggedly ahead, and suddenly ...

— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... long before I found that he was courting his present wife, and that she had been taken away to be out of his reach. I hated her then, quite as much as I hate her now; and naturally, therefore, could desire nothing better than that she should marry him. ...

— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... sitting at Coldback, the days did not go well. She was weary of the courting of Gizur, whom she played with as a cat plays with a rat, and her heart was sick with love, hate, and jealousy. For she well knew that Gudruda and Eric still clung to each other and found means of greeting, ...

— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... sat a very weary woman, cradled between its hospitable roots, with her back turned on the workaday world and her face to the open country. This was her eyrie; and here, when another woman would have been shut into a darkened chamber courting sleep, came Kate Kildare on ...

— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

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