where the dictionary becomes dangerous

This week I've been half of a discussion about the meanings of words and sorrow for words that have lost their meanings. So, out of curiousity, I typed "love" into dictionary.com to see what the result was. Here's the top one from the American Heritage Dictionary:

A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.

This reminded me of an illustration from one of my 1L law school classes, CrimLaw with Professor Rucker (not one about picking up girls, rape, robbery, or meth labs, in case any of my fellow students were worried). He used to say that you could tell when someone didn't know what he was talking about in an essay question answer, because the answer would be really long, wandering all over the place while the writer tried to cover up his ignorance. The person who knew the right answer would spit it out and be overwith. Concisely.

(No offense to the dictionary guys.)

This table, just a bit further down the dictionary.com page, is a fun read, too:

Synonyms: These nouns denote feelings of warm personal attachment or strong attraction to another person.
Love is the most intense: marrying for love. Affection is a less ardent and more unvarying feeling of tender regard: parental affection. Devotion is earnest, affectionate dedication and implies selflessness: teachers admired for their devotion to children. Fondness is strong liking or affection: a fondness for small animals. Infatuation is foolish or extravagant attraction, often of short duration: lovers blinded to their differences by their mutual infatuation.