metamour

English

WOTD – 28 February 2026

Alternative forms

• metamor

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *me

Proto-Indo-European *meth₂?

Ancient Greek μετᾰ́ (metắ)

Ancient Greek μετᾰ- (metă-)lbor.

English meta-

Proto-Indo-European *h₃emh₃-

Proto-Indo-European *-ti

Proto-Indo-European *h₃émh₃ti

Proto-Italic *amō

Latin amō

Proto-Indo-European *-os

Proto-Indo-European *-s

Proto-Indo-European *-ōs

Proto-Italic *-ōs

Latin -or

Latin amōrem

Old French amor

Middle French amourbor.

Middle English amour

▲

French amourinflu.

English amour

English paramourinflu.

English metamour

From meta- (“transcending”) +‎ amour (“lover”), likely influenced by paramour.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛ.tə.mʊə/, /-mɔː/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmɛ.tə.mʊɹ/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: met‧a‧mour

Noun

metamour (plural metamours)

1. In a polyamorous relationship, one's partner's partner, with whom one is not directly involved.

   Synonym: meta

   • 2000 August 11, Liz W, “When your wife loves to be at the center …!”, in alt.polyamory‎^[1] (Usenet):

     I get it less with women who are bi and poly than with women who are monosexual and monogamous/monoamorous, but I can't put my finger on why, and there are exceptions in both directions. I get it less with metamours than with women who are unrelated, but maybe that's just because if my metamours were alien to me, there's a fair chance they'd be alien to my partners too, or conversely that I'd have been alien to the partners when they were still just potential partners, and hence we'd never become metamours in the first place.

   • 2024 January 16, Allison P. Davis, “What Does a Polycule Actually Look Like?”, in The New York Times‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 23 November 2025:

     Even over Zoom, Anna has features that instill jealousy – thick brown hair, camera-ready cheekbones, intense green eyes — and in considering how jealous I would feel if Anna (or honestly any of this polycule, because yes, reader, they are all hot) were my metamour, I imagine what it would be like, how destabilizing to watch your partner grow closer and more intimate and happier with another person; […]

Derived terms

• meta (clipping)

Translations

the partner of one's partner

• Dutch: metamour
• Esperanto: metaamanto, boamanto
• Finnish: metamuru
• French: métamour (fr)
• Portuguese: metamor m

Further reading

• “metamour”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.