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but none of these really mean the same thing.
But you don't want them to mean the same thing, since you are looking for differentiation. wsieber, i misstated myself. what i was attempting to say is that none of the words i listed--at least in my mind--are suitable (superlative enough, if you will) for adequate expression of the depth, breadth, or compelling force that is embodied in the word "love".
i guess i'm just lamenting the absence of a few more ways to express deep adoration in various circumstances without detracting from the sanctity of the word LOVE. i think it's wonderful to tell people that you love them--i say it to my own children a million times a day, and often say it to my close friends as well--but somehow in my mind it's like trumping a two of hearts when you've got the three in your hand...where do you go from there?
NicholasW.... your coinings are wonderful ~ powerful and apt distinctions between at least three different types of love(*), though as you wisely pointed out, they are rarely mutually exclusive.
(*): is that poor grammar? can one distinguish "between" three things? somehow "among" didn't look right either. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Agape is the personal love with no expectation of return or reward, like the love of God for his creatures, humans for God
Agape is also the word that the Authorised Version translates as "charity." As in 1 Corinthians 13:13, "and now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." Given the extent to which so much modern charity is motivated by a love of tax rebates, translating agape as charity seems very quaint indeed.
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Carpal Tunnel
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1st Corinthians 13:13, "and now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
Wasn't that changed in the "new" Bible to "love?"
I like the wording in the "old" Bible much better but perhaps that's just a case of prefering the things you grew up with.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Wasn't that changed in the "new" Bible to "love?"
Yes. I believe that it may have something to do with the remote possibility that English usage just might have shifted a tad since 1610. 
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old hand
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old hand
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Love, amour, amor, amore, liebe, charity, agape, storge, yadda, yadda, yadda.... Nobody's mentioned the word used in the story, Bambi - twitter-pated!  Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage. Ambrose Bierce By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing, And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying-- One of you is lying Dorothy Parker
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Carpal Tunnel
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Perhaps this is why we are so prone to using qualifyers to shade our "kind" of love, i.e. "Platonic love," "romantic love," "young love." But the misconstrued semantics of love are legendary. I know I've gotten into trouble many times when a light, friendly "love" was taken for something else by the person it was directed towards, or by someone who overheard and got the gossip chain going! And once that happens, it seems the explanation, "No, I just meant I really love her as a friend" is never fully trusted and the relationship is never quite the same again. A language gap, indeed!  One well-known German word left out: Leibchen. And, remember, "Love is never having to say your sorry!" Somebody how to say that awful phrase, so I thought I'd save somebody else the cringe of putting it out there!
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Carpal Tunnel
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The way I see it, "love" is a verbal word. Unless you're exceedingly inept in the use of day-to-day speech, to say "I love ice blocks" would not leave anyone having visions of a very peculiar type of relationship. I might (but wouldn't, of course) say "I love Heather Locklear", but even then, no one would really believe that I did anything other than vaguely lust after her. And there are, of course, dozens of other shades of meanings and contexts in which you might say "I love" rather than "I like" while actually meaning "I like". Spoken, there would be little confusion. The word "love" falls down when it is part of written prose. Without a lot of modifying preparatory bumpf, the bald, written statement "I love Heather Locklear" might be taken in the sense of eros simply because there are no referents on which to base any other interpretation. Similarly, you may be kinky as all get out, and write "I love my church", intending the sense of eros while others around you would interpret it in terms of agape because of lack of other information. However, I understand Bridget's dilemma, and I have a solution. Let's say that "love" as a verb takes a modifying number, for instance, 1 to 10. 1 equals "I like" and 8 equals "I love romantically" with all of the ramifications of that. 9 equals "luuurrve" and 10 equals "I'm damned if I know what love is, really". Therefore "I love(1) ice cream" will leave no one confused about what you mean. "I love(9) Heather Locklear" will be interpreted correctly. "I love(10) my wife" would get you a divorce. How about it?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Pooh-Bah
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Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Ambrose BierceAs a character remarked on a sitcom last night, "After all, half of settling down is 'settling.'"
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veteran
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veteran
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Charity
Charity comes, of course, from caritas, the word which St. Jerome chose to translate agape. Apparently amor had the same connotation as eros. In spite of that, you get the famous hymn, Ubi caritas et amor, ibi Deus est (Where charity and love are, there is God), which seems to put both loves in the same category. Modern Bible translations have abandoned the use of charity for the famous Corinthians passage precisely because the original meaning has been subsumed by the modern meaning of "alms".
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a verbal word
As opposed to...?
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