Buddies

How to spell buddies

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce buddies

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does buddies mean?

1. nounInformal term for close friends or companions.

Buddies in a sentence

• He met his old army buddies for dinner every month.

• The two buddies have shared an office for a decade.

Where does buddies come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural of 'buddy', an informal word for a close friend or companion that arose in American English in the early to middle 1800s. The most widely accepted explanation is that it is a casual, almost baby-talk alteration of 'brother', softened in everyday speech into 'buddy'. Some scholars also connect it to the British dialect word 'butty', meaning a workmate or fellow labourer, especially among miners. Whichever path is correct, the word spread quickly through American slang and was firmly established by the time of the Civil War. The spelling trap lies in the doubled 'd' and the change of the final 'y' to 'ies' when made plural, a regular English rule that nonetheless catches people who write 'buddys'.

How the word is built

• budd- (from buddy, a familiar companion)
• -ies (plural of nouns ending in -y)