lufu

Old English lufu came from Proto-Germanic *lubō, which may trace further back to Proto-Indo-European *lewbh- ('to care, to desire'). The word is cognate with Old High German luba, Old Saxon luƀa, and Gothic lubō. In every early Germanic language, the word carried the sense of deep affection and care, not the romantic passion that Latin amor described.

The semantic range of love in English is unusually wide. Greek had four words: eros (romantic), philia (friendship), storge (familial), and agape (unconditional). Latin split amor from caritas. English collapsed all of these into one word. You love your mother, your partner, your dog, and pizza, and the language treats all four the same.

The tennis meaning of love — zero points — is probably unrelated. The most accepted explanation is that it comes from playing 'for love,' meaning for nothing, no stakes. Another theory connects it to French l'oeuf ('the egg'), since an egg resembles a zero. The l'oeuf theory is disputed but persistent, and it has the advantage of being more fun than the alternative.

Love is one of the ten most frequently used nouns in English. It appears in every genre of music, every form of literature, every wedding and every breakup. The word has been in continuous use for over 1,200 years. The spelling changed, the pronunciation shifted, but the word held. English speakers have never found a replacement because they have never needed one.