relationship
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɹɪˈleɪ.ʃənˌʃɪp/
ipa: [ɹɪˈleɪ.ʃn̩ˌʃɪp]
Forms: form: relationships
Etymology: From relation + -ship.
Senses: examples: text: But some discussion of the complex relationship between “allohistory” and sf is appropriate here, as the genres overlap in certain ways. Classical allohistory— such as Trevelyan's "What if Napoleon had won the Battle of Waterloo?" and Churchill's "If Lee had not won the Battle of Gettysburg" —is a rigorously consistent thought-experiment in historical causality.
ref: 2011 February 1, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, Wesleyan University Press, →ISBN, pages 102–103:
glosses: Connection or association; the condition of being related.
examples: text: Policing the relationship between government and business in a free society is difficult. Businesspeople have every right to lobby governments, and civil servants to take jobs in the private sector.
ref: 2013 August 10, Schumpeter, “Cronies and capitols”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: The links between the x-values and y-values of ordered pairs of numbers especially coordinates.
glosses: Kinship; being related by blood or marriage.
examples: text: They have been in a relationship for ten years, but have never married.
text: I'm not advocating sexual promiscuity but I think it's possible for a woman to have many kinds of sexual relationships with many men and that shouldn't affect the status of the marriage.
ref: 1975 March 17, Marian Christy, “Suzy Chaffee, A Liberated Beauty”, in The Lebanon Daily News:
text: Her most satisfying sexual relationship seemed to be a threesome with Charles Chaplin Jr. and Eddy Robinson Jr., the spurned sons of famous film fathers.
ref: 2000 April 8, Dorthea Straus, “Oates on Marilyn: Men, drugs, tragedy”, in The Baltimore Sun:
text: Contrary to the popular perception that love typically sparks from passion, a new study finds two-thirds of romantic relationships begin as long-term friendships.
ref: 2021 July 20, Sarah Molano, “Most romantic relationships start as friendships, study finds”, in CNN:
text: Only 25.3% of our participants had a social peer group, and just 3.4% had ever been in a romantic relationship. None were currently in a relationship or married.
ref: 2025 August 13, Müjdat Erarkadaş, Kübra Özmeral Erarkadaş, Şahika Gülen Şişmanlar, “Autism Spectrum Disorder Beyond Childhood: A Comprehensive Assessment of Activities of Daily Living and Social Functioning in Turkish Adults”, in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, →DOI:
glosses: A romantic or sexual involvement.
examples: text: I have a good working relationship with my boss.
text: “I Love Lisa” opens with one of my favorite underappreciated running jokes from The Simpsons: the passive-aggressive, quietly contentious relationship of radio jocks Bill and Marty, whose mindless happy talk regularly gives way to charged exchanges that betray the simmering resentment and disappointment perpetually lingering just under the surface of their relationship.
ref: 2012 August 5, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):
glosses: A way in which two or more people behave and are involved with each other
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: The level or degree of affinity between keys, chords and tones.
Hyponyms: joking relationship
Derived terms: antirelationship
blood relationship
brolationship
customer relationship
cyberrelationship
entity-relationship diagram
entity relationship diagram
entity-relationship model
e-relationship
fakeship
flirtationship
interrelationship
intrarelationship
legal relationship
long-distance relationship
new relationship energy
nonrelationship
open relationship
rebound relationship
relationship anarchy
relationshipless
relationshiply
relationshipper
relationshipping
relationshippy
relationship status
relationshit
relationshopping
relfie
sexship
situationship
special relationship
step-relationship
steprelationship
structure-activity relationship
textationship
vacationship
Related terms: relate
relation
relative