friendsome

English

Etymology

From Middle English frendsome, equivalent to friend +‎ -some (adjective). Compare Scots friendsome (“friendly”), Dutch vriendzaam (“friendly”), German freundsam (“friendly”).

Adjective

friendsome (comparative more friendsome, superlative most friendsome)

1. (usually colloquial) Indicating or characterised by friendship; in manner, like or befitting a friend; friendlike; friendly.
   • 1901, Gwendoline Keats, Tales of Dunstáble Weir - Page 130:

     Everyone outside my mother called father Eben. Father looked up and smiled. He and Miss Bet had been terrible friendsome ever since the day when, as a tiddleliwinkie snip o' a child [...]

   • 2000, Randall Beth Platt, The 1898 Baseball Fe-As-Ko - Page 156:

     He was long-married hisownself, real friendsome, and his smile wasn't aimed at me, it was to match my own.

   • 2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN:

     […] maybe Yanagi b'liefed us an' maybe he din't, but he bartered us fungusdo' for rockfish an' warned us Waimea Town weren't so friendsome as it'd been once, nay, Kona say-soed'n'knucklied ficklewise an' you cudn't guess their b'havin's.

Derived terms

• friendsomeness