Madamar, you asked about 'to cherish.' I'll comment:
To me, cherish is to feel strong emotional attachment with a person or an idea or an object.
To cherish a wife is to love her tenderly, to consider her unique as a being, disregarding anything else.
I think of 'cherie in French.' There is no word for cherish in Spanish, and less so in Hebrew. In Spanish there is 'querida' which is applied as such for the one that reciprocates your love. Otherwise one has to add a noun, such as a name or a qualifier: 'querida amiga.' This goes for English too. But you cannot say in Spanish to a woman "Mi querida," because that means 'my concubine." In Hebrew you say to a friend, 'My 'expensive' (valued) friend, and to anybody you can say in an argument, "My valued sir."
I went to my big dictionary, and it gives meanings just as I wrote, which are of course no novelty to an English teacher. I just wanted you to realize that I'm quite proficient in your language. Otherwise we would not have met. I was also interested in comparing with Spanish and with Hebrew.
Now, the thing I learned is that cher/cherie derive, as does cherish, from Latin "carus." In Spanish 'caro' means expensive, yet one can say, "Mi caro amigo," the word 'caro' being parallel to 'dear' in English and to the Hebrew word equivalent used when writing to a friend or when addressing a person in a debate.
And now I learned that 'querido/a' derives from 'carus,' as does 'cher/cherie'...
One can say about a person "I cherish her/him," only in case of requited love. Yet one can say "I cherish the ideals, writings of..."
You will notice that one of my recent postings on "Unconscious Divorce" deals with the Spanish expression "Mi cara mitad" ("My half-face"). In Spanish, 'Cara,' is both 'dear' and 'expensive' but also FACE!
Jacob, I believe that "to cherish" can be refined in meaning even more. We only use that word, in English at least, with the conscious affirmation of the instrinsic worth to us of the person, object or concept that we "cherish." Thus, it is not surprising that "cara" means both "dear" (in its definition as "expensive" and in its affectionate connotation) and "face" (really translatable as "self-worth" both in that language and in English). At one time it was a common slang expression in American culture, when insulting or "bringing down" someone, "I faced him!"
I may feel one of the many forms of "love" toward a variety of people or concepts -- but when I say the word "cherish" it is with my own recognition of the cherished person's great value, and it carries with it the unspoken promise that I will protect tenderly the worth of that person.
May I call your attention, Madamar, to the linguistic observation that all affirmations are "conscious"?
"Cara" in Spanish is rarely used as "dear," being mostly applied by prospective buyers to express expensiveness.
One does not cherish the loved one's 'great value.' One cherishes the loved one, who has acquired 'great value' only in our heart. We promise nothing, spoken or not: we just feel, at a given stage, that we desire in our heart of hearts to protect her/him, not to hurt her/him, to love her/him until death...
As for the "intrinsic" value of the cherished person, it is actually the extrinsic value what we cherish. The intrinsic value is recognized by all the acquaintances, being only the extrinsic value what makes her/him cherished by us.