Friendship
nounThe relationship or bond between people who are friends.
How to spell friendship
10 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce friendship
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does friendship mean?
- nounThe relationship or bond between people who are friends.
Friendship in a sentence
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Their friendship began on the first day of university and lasted decades.
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The two companies signed an agreement to mark the friendship between their cities.
Where does friendship come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word descends from the Old English freondscipe, a compound of freond, meaning 'friend' or 'one who loves', and the suffix -scipe, which named a state or condition. The first element freond was originally a present participle of freogan, the Old English verb 'to love', so a friend was literally 'a loving one', which neatly explains the silent shape of the word. The suffix -scipe, the ancestor of modern -ship, turned the noun into the abstract idea of the relationship itself, much as it does in 'fellowship' and 'kinship'. The spelling kept the 'ie' cluster from the older freond even after the pronunciation settled into a short 'e' sound, which is exactly the trap that catches writers today. The word has been in continuous English use for well over a thousand years, making it one of the oldest abstract nouns in the language.
How the word is built
- friend (one who is fond)
- -ship (state or condition of)
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