Someone who pets or caresses, typically referring to someone who engages in romantic physical contact. The term can also refer to someone who strokes animals affectionately.
From the verb 'pet' (to stroke fondly), which comes from Scottish dialect meaning 'to indulge' or 'pamper.' The agent suffix '-er' creates the noun form. The romantic sense developed in 20th-century American slang.
The innocent word 'pet' took on romantic connotations in the early 1900s, leading to 'petting parties' - the Jazz Age equivalent of today's dating culture. What started as a word for stroking animals became part of the changing social dynamics of courtship in modern America.
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