Why ‘love’ means “nothing”

In tennis, love is a word used to represent a score of zero. It’s been used this way since the late 1800s, but no one knows why.

The first theory makes for a cool story but, much like the points system in tennis, it doesn’t add up. The theory goes that the "tennis" sense of love is derived from French l'œuf meaning "egg." It’s said that when the game was imported into France from England, the French used the word l'œuf to mean "zero," due to the resemblance of an egg to the written figure 0. English players mispronouncing the French word supposedly influenced the change to love, but there is no evidence of l'œuf being used in French to mean "zero." The French use zéro to mean "zero".

The second and more accepted theory is that this sense of love comes from the expression "to play for love." The idea is that a person who fails to make any points doesn't care because they are playing for the love of the game, rather than playing to win. A similar idea is found in the origin of the word amateur, which can refer to a person who does something strictly for love; the word comes from the Latin word amare, meaning "to love."

It seems that human nature might have compelled people to express their zero as love. Love, after all, even when it means "nothing," makes everyone feel better.