friendship Hear it!

friendship Definition

friend·ship (frends̸hip′)

noun

  1. the state of being friends
  2. attachment between friends
  3. friendly feeling or attitude; friendliness

Etymology: ME frendship < OE freondscipe

friendship Synonyms

friendship

n.

  1. The state of being friends

    association, companionship, alliance, confraternity, amity, concord, harmony, camaraderie, fellowship, comradeship, fraternization, attachment, bond, closeness, brotherhood, sisterhood, fraternity, comity, mutual regard, affinity, accord, league, pact, rapprochement (French), sympathy, rapport, understanding, agreement, compatibility, fellow feeling, intercourse, intimacy, familiarity, bonding.

    Antonyms hatred*, hostility, enmity.

  2. Friendly feeling

    friendliness, good will, favor, devotion, regard, brotherly love, affection, fondness, consideration, esteem, good intentions, kindness, kindliness, amiability, amicability, neighborliness, sociability, loving-kindness, respect, attention, attentiveness, appreciation, tenderness, geniality, congeniality, heartiness, conviviality, affability, companionability, cordiality, good faith, confidence, attachment, loyalty, steadfastness, staunchness, responsiveness, understanding, warmth, sympathy, good humor, good nature, graciousness, benevolence, sincerity, generosity, chumminess*, clubbability*.

    Antonyms hatred*, animosity, disfavor.

friendship Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • forge: Through the group's active social scene, you'd forge strong friendships which could last a lifetime.
  • renew: As ever, Lin and I look forward to renewing old friendships and kindling new ones.
  • cultivate: For Burke " good men [ must ] cultivate friendships " .
  • intertwine: Love and friendship intertwined in the Celtic symbols on the ring have relevance to every couple contemplating marriage.
  • rekindle: The opportunity to rekindle old friendships through the alumni search facility.
  • cement: For some, membership in a voluntary association has resulted in or cemented lifelong friendships.

Preposition: with

  • boy: Strayed A widowed schoolteacher who flees Nazi-occupied Paris with her children develops a friendship with a teenage boy who comes to their rescue.

Adjective modifier

  • lasting: I have met some wonderful people during my holidays over the years, some of them having turned into lasting friendships.
  • life-long: It produced a body of work that is still remembered, has provoked many happy memories and produced a life-long friendship.
  • lifelong: For some, membership in a voluntary association has resulted in or cemented lifelong friendships.
  • enduring: Financial success eludes the couple but they gradually find their place among the characterful locals and develop an unlikely and enduring friendship with René .
  • long-standing: He has a long-standing friendship with City's owner Sam Hammam.
  • intimate: Soon the two women have formed an intense, intimate friendship.

Modifies a noun

  • bracelet: DEVELOPMENT IDEAS: Research the tradition of making and giving friendship bracelets and made your own.
  • circle: Continuity: In scene four when Sam is sitting on the friendship circle you can see that her legs are crossed the entire time.
  • treaty: Almost 80 years ago Poland signed a friendship treaty with Iran.
  • network: Develop out-of-school-hours provision Help new arrivals catch up with their studies and connect them to local community and friendship networks.
  • group: Briefing sessions We requested the children should be in a pre-existing natural friendship group of around 4 where possible.

Noun used with modifier

  • childhood: Storm by Suzanne Fisher Staples How could the loyalty of a childhood friendship withstand the onslaught of adult hypocrisy and racism?
  • firm: Clubs meet on a regular basis, which allows members to build firm friendships.
friendship Quotes

Idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est. Agreements in likes and dislikesöthis, and only this is what constitutes true friendship.

—Catiline full name Lucius Sergius Catilina

Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

—Wallis, Hal

A certain sort of friendship soon arose between the Fans and me.We each recognized that we belonged to that same section of thehumanrace with whom it isbetter to drink than to fight.We knew we would each have killed the other, if sufficient inducement were offered, and so we took a certain amount of care that the inducement should not arise.

—Kingsley, Mary Henrietta

Always,Sir, set a highvalue onspontaneouskindness.He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attract to you.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.

—Hazlitt,William

If the husband be a man with whom you have lived on a friendly footing before marriage,öif you did not come inonthewife'sside,öif youdid not sneak intothehouse in her train, but were an old friend in first habits of intimacy before their courtship was so much as thought on,ölook about you† Every long friendship, every old authentic intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped with their currency, as a sovereign Prince calls in the good old money that was coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new marked and minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will let it pass current in the world.

—Lamb, Charles

Gold schenkt die Eitelkeit, der rauhe Stolz, Die Freundschaft und die Liebe schenken Blumen. Gold is the gift of vanityand pride, Friendship and love offer flowers.

—Grillparzer, Franz

An elegant sufficiency, content, Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books, Ease and alternate labour, useful life, Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!

—Thomson,James pseudonym 'BV',ByssheVanolis

If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.

—Goldsmith, Oliver

   La grande amitie¤   n'est jamais tranquille. Great friendship is never peaceful.

—Se¤  vigne¤  , Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de

One friend in a lifetime ismuch; two are many; three are hardly possible.Friendship needs a certainparallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

—Adams, Henry Brooks

I was the last to consent to the separation, but the separation having been made, and having become inevitable, I have always said that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.

—George III

Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their familyöbut to a solitaryand an exile his friends are everything.

—Cather,Willa Sibert

My whole life Has been a golden dream of love and friendship.

—Dryden,John

Immortal Spenser, no frailty hath thy fame but the imputation of this idiot's friendship!

—Nashe,Thomas

In friendship false, implacable in hate: Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.

—Dryden,John

Levin wanted friendship and got friendliness; he wanted steak and they offered spam.

—Malamud, Bernard

There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

L'amour et l'amitie¤   s'excluent l'un l'autre. Love and friendship exclude one another.

—La Bruye'  re,Jean de

La haine est toujours plus clairvoyante et plus inge¤  nieuse que l'amitie¤  . Hate is always more clairvoyant and ingenious than friendship.

—Laclos, Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

—Poe, EdgarAllan

Even if we take marriage at its lowest, even if we regard it as no more than a sort of friendship recognised by the police.

—Stevenson, Robert Louis

Le temps, qui fortifie les amitie¤  s, affaiblit l'amour. Time, which strengthens friendships, weakens love.

—La Bruye'  re,Jean de

What is the odds so long as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the wing of friendship never moults a feather!

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

A woman's friendship ever ends in love.

—Gay,John

Browse dictionary entries near friendship

  1. Friends
  2. -friendly
  3. Friendly Islands
  4. friendly fire
  5. friendly
  6. friendliness
  7. friendless
  8. friend of the court
  9. friend at court
  10. friend
  1. frier
  2. fries
  3. Friesian
  4. Friesland
  5. frieze
  6. frig
  7. frigate
  8. frigate bird
  9. Frigg
  10. frigging