Cuddling closely with someone by lying on your side with your body curved against theirs, like two spoons nested together.
From the noun 'spoon' (from Old English 'spon,' a chip of wood). The cuddling meaning emerged in the late 1800s, taking the shape of nested spoons as its metaphor; also historically meant light romantic caressing before 'making out' became common slang.
The word 'spooning' reveals how language borrows from everyday objects—we shape our most intimate moments around the geometry of kitchenware! It's one of the few romantic terms that's purely visual rather than based on euphemism or Latin roots.
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