word usage - What's so idiomatic about "unrequited"?


Unrequited, according to the most influential dictionaries, is a term mostly used in reference to love. As the following source notes:




  • Unrequited is used almost exclusively in the context of romantic love. If you love someone and they don't love you back––that, my friend, is a case of unrequited love.



As noted here, the term is quite old and was originally used in reference to money:




  • Unrequited love is so painful, most people feel they are the first person in history to experience it, but the word unrequited has in fact been around since the 1520s, when it was invented, like many good words, to talk about money. It derived from re- 'back' + the Middle English quite 'pay up.'



(Vocabulary.com)


Though it is true that unrequited is also collocated with other terms expressing feelings and emotions such as hatred, anger, lust etc., love is by far the term unrequited is most often associated with. Please see here.


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What's so idiomatic about the term "unrequited" to be so closely and exclusively associated with "love"? Was it, perhaps, often used by writers and poets in the past to talk about love pains to make it a set phrase?


Or is the connection via the original "money concept" in the sense that it originally referred to "paid" love?




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