agapemone /a-gə-PE-mə-nee/. noun. A community of love. An establishment for free-love. As a proper noun, it refers to either of the headquarters of the religious sects founded by Rev. Henry James Prince or Rev. John Hugh Smyth-Pigott in the mid-late 1800s. A coinage roughly derived from Greek agapē (love) + monē (stopping place).
“The happy nature of my retirement is most sweetly expressed in its being the abode of Love. It is, as it were, an inexpensive Agapemone.” (Charles Dickens, from All the Year Round)
“I myself would move immediately back into our Audrey’s former agapemone or ‘Guest’ room down the hall.” (David Foster Wallace, from Oblivion)
She even wrote a book.’ ¶
‘About agapemones?’ ¶
‘Yes. And the Higher Wisdom. And Beautiful Thought. That sort of thing. Full of bad syntax.’ (Dorothy L. Sayers, from Gaudy Night)
“that she should still allow Christopher to run an Agapemone in what was after all her own house, Sylvia would have liked to be able to reply: ‘Ah, but what can you expect of a woman upon whose stairs you will find, side by side, a hairbrush, a frying pan, and a copy of Sappho!’” (Ford Madox Ford, from Parade’s End)