friendly
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈfɹɛnd.li/
ipa: /ˈfɹɛn.li/
rhymes: -ɛndli
rhymes: -ɛnli
Forms: form: friendlier
form: more friendly
form: friendliest
form: most friendly
Etymology: From Middle English frendly, freendly, frendely, frendlich, from Old English frēondlīċ, from Proto-Germanic *frijōndlīkaz, equivalent to friend + -ly. Cognate with Saterland Frisian früntelk, fjuntelk (“friendly”), West Frisian freonlik (“friendly”), Dutch vriendelijk (“friendly”), German Low German fründelk, frünnelk (“friendly”), German freundlich (“friendly”).
Senses: examples: text: Your cat seems very friendly.
text: They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups. The boy became volubly friendly and bubbling over with unexpected humour and high spirits.
ref: 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919, →OCLC, page 9:
text: Our friendliest carmates are a family from Armenia taking a vacation from the Georgian war.
ref: 2007, Eugene Buchanan, Brothers on the Bashkaus: A Siberian Paddling Adventure, page 36:
glosses: Generally warm, approachable and easy to relate with in character.
examples: text: He gave a friendly smile.
glosses: Inviting, characteristic of friendliness.
examples: text: a user-friendly software program
text: a dog-friendly café
text: the use of environmentally friendly packaging
text: The inter-working of the Bodensee-Toggenburg, Swiss South-Eastern and Swiss Federal Railways is of a most friendly kind.
ref: 1956 January, 'Mercury', “The Railways of North-East Switzerland”, in Railway Magazine, page 23:
text: Hariri even nominated Hezbollah-friendly Sleiman Frangieh for the presidency, which by tradition is held by a Maronite Christian; but Hezbollah and Aoun held out, insisting that Aoun would be president or there would be no president at all.
ref: 2016 October 22, Rami G Khouri, “Lebanese oligarchy preserves its interests once again”, in Aljazeera:
text: Older cryptocurrencies with regulatory overhang including Ripple's XRP and TRX were among the biggest gainers over the past month as Donald Trump's election victory promises a friendlier regulatory environment towards digital assets.
ref: 2024 December 4, Krisztian Sandor, “Binance's BNB Hits Fresh Record, Breaks Out of 3-Year Range as Altcoin Rotation Accelerates”, in CoinDesk:
glosses: Having an easy or accepting relationship with something.
examples: text: The cobbled streets aren't very bike-friendly.
text: Organic farms only use soil-friendly fertilisers.
text: Our sandwiches are made with dolphin-friendly tuna.
text: An offbeat pizza restaurant, which also serves pasta and salads, and bills itself as low-fat and heart-friendly. Has over forty different designer pizza toppings, such as smoked salmon, sour cream and caviar.
ref: 2010, Tony Pinchuck, Barbara McCrea, Donald Reid, Ross Velton, The Rough Guide to South Africa, 6th edition, London: Rough Guides, →ISBN, pages 147–148:
glosses: Compatible with, or not damaging to (the compounded noun).
examples: text: a friendly competition
text: a friendly power or state
text: in friendly relations with his moderate opponents
ref: 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter II, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
glosses: Without any hostility.
examples: text: a friendly breeze or gale
text: Coarſe are his Meals, the Fortune of the Chaſe, / Amidſt the running Stream he ſlakes his Thirſt, / Toil's all the Day, and at th' approach of Night / On the firſt friendly Bank he throws him down, / Or reſts his Head upon a Rock 'till Morn: […]
ref: 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene iv, page 10:
glosses: Promoting the good of any person; favourable; propitious.
examples: text: The soldier was killed by friendly fire.
text: It is clear that the firing of very heavy guns, or the enemy's fire in return, would very seriously interfere with an abbatis, or anything of that kind, and it will only be something of the lightest character, or something that is placed at a considerable distance from the friendly fire, the fire of the gun itself, that would remain.
ref: 1867 June 3, Jasper Selwyn, “Further Particulars Regarding Moncrieff's Protected Barbette System”, in Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, volume XI, number XLIV, page 256:
text: The slaughter of one's own troops by being fired into by their friends in rear. We are very much concerned over the question of avoiding loss from the enemy's bullets while passing through the danger zone, but what have we done to avoid our bravest fellows, the survival of the fittest, those who have gotten to the front and have held on to hard-won positions—what have we done to avoid their being shot to pieces by friendly fire? Absolutely nothing that we have ever heard of—and yet this is one of the most serious problems that confronts the leader of troops. Courage before the enemy will quail before a fire from the rear.
ref: 1910, P.E.T., “The Franco-German War”, in Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, volume XLVI, number CLXV, page 552:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: Of or pertaining to friendlies (friendly noun sense 2, below). Also applied to other bipolar confrontations, such as team sports.
examples: text: friendly
text: friendly pairs
text: friendly n-tuples
topics: mathematics
number-theory
sciences
glosses: Being or relating to two or more natural numbers with a common abundancy.
Synonyms: word: affectionate
word: amiable
word: amicable
word: chummy
word: companionable
word: congenial
word: cordial
word: facile
word: familiar
word: friendly
word: genial
word: hospitable
word: matey
word: personable
word: simpatico
word: welcoming
Hyponyms: dyslexia-friendly
eco-friendly
environmentally friendly
family-friendly
finger-friendly
printer-friendly
print-friendly
radio-friendly
tool-friendly
user-friendly
Derived terms: biofriendly
ecologically friendly
envirofriendly
enviro-friendly
find a friendly bush
friendlihead
friendlihood
friendliness
friendly amendment
friendly fire
friendly fraud
friendly giant
friendlyish
Friendly Islands
friendly lead
friendly match
friendly name
friendly number
friendly society
friendly suit
friendly URL
guest-friendly
heterofriendly
make friendly
overfriendly
poz friendly
search-engine-friendly
superfriendly
Related terms: word: agreeable
word: friend
word: kindly
word: polite
word: sociable