darling
noun
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A kind or sweet person; sweetheart.
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An affectionate term of address.
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A person or thing very popular with a certain group.
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A person who is dear to one.
adj
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Dear; cherished.
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charming
the object of one's affections
How often have the words darling and the object of one's affections occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )