Why “lovesickness” is a great word
LOVESICKNESS — [Noun] The state or condition of being lovesick, characterized by a melancholic or obsessive longing due to unrequited or absent romantic love. From the compound adjective 'lovesick' (from 'love' + 'sick', first recorded 1520–30) + the noun-forming suffix '-ness' (denoting a state or condition). The noun 'lovesickness' is first attested in 1592 in the writing of Thomas Lodge. Unlike "heartbreak," which denotes the acute grief of a concluded love, or "limerence," which clinically specifies an involuntary obsession, lovesickness is the chronic, poetic affliction of yearning for what is absent. It is the ache of a phantom limb for a person who was never truly yours; the slow, sweet poison of a tune that plays only in your own head; the daily ritual of watching a window across the street, hoping for a shadow to move—a malady as old as poetry, proving the soul, too, can manifest a fever.