Friendly

How to spell friendly

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce friendly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does friendly mean?

1. adjectiveKind, warm, and pleasant in manner toward others.

Friendly in a sentence

• The new neighbours gave us a friendly welcome on moving day.

• Staff at the hotel were efficient and remarkably friendly.

Where does friendly come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows directly from the native English noun 'friend', which descends from the Old English 'freond', meaning 'a person one is fond of'. That noun was originally a present participle of a verb meaning 'to love' or 'to favour', so a friend was literally 'a loving one'. The adjective form 'freondlic', adding the suffix that became modern '-ly' and signals 'having the quality of', already existed in Old English to describe behaviour worthy of a friend. The spelling trap survives from that ancient root: the silent arrangement of the 'ie' inside 'friend' follows no modern phonetic logic, which is why fluent adults still pause over 'i before e' here. The same Germanic family gives us the related word 'fiend', whose vowels sit in the opposite order, a coincidence that makes the pairing memorable.

How the word is built

• friend (from Old English freond, one who is fond)
• -ly (adjective suffix meaning 'having the quality of')