Lover's Dictionary

David Levithan is the author of many acclaimed novels, including Boy Meets Boy, the New York Times bestselling Will Grayson,

4/223

Will Grayson (with John Green), and Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (with Rachel Cohn), which was adapted into a popular movie. He is also an editorial director at Scholastic in New York. David lives in New Jersey.

THE

LOVER'S

DICTIONARY

DAVID LEVITHAN

The paper used in this book is manufactured only from wood grown in sustainable regrowth forests.

The Text Publishing Company Swann House 22 William Street Melbourne Victoria 3000 Australia textpublishing.com.au Copyright © David Levithan 2011 The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

7/223

Originally published in 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York This edition published by The Text Publishing Company 2011 Cover design by W. H. Chong Text design by Jonathan D. Lippincott National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Levithan, David. Title: The lover’s dictionary / David Levithan. ISBN: 9781921656910 (pbk.) Dewey Number: 813.6

For my parents, with gratitude and wonder

Contents

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O

11/223

P Q R S T U V W X Y Z acknowledgments

A

aberrant, adj.

“I don’t normally do this kind of thing,” you said. “Neither do I,” I assured you. Later it turned out we had both met people online before, and we had both slept with people on first dates before, and we had both found ourselves falling too fast before. But we comforted ourselves with what we really meant to say, which was: “I don’t normally feel this good about what I’m...