Other forms: companions
A companion is the person or animal that keeps you company on the way. A travelling companion.
The word is warmer than a colleague and less committed than a partner. A companion animal is the formal term for a pet in medicine and in law.
1nouncompanionThe person or animal that keeps you company on the way.
“His companion for forty years was a bad-tempered terrier.”
companion is a person.
Latin com, with, and pānis, bread. A companion is quite literally someone you share your bread with.
Proto-Indo-European
*peh₂-
Old French
compaignon
Middle English
companion
English, today
companion
Built from
From Middle English companion, from Old French compaignon. From Middle English companion, from Old French compaignon (“companion”) (modern French compagnon), from Latin compāniōn- (nominative singular compāniō, whence French copain), from com + pānis (literally, with + bread), a word first attested in the Frankish Lex Salica as a calque of a gem word, probably Frankish galaibo, gahlaibō (“messmate”) literally “with-bread”, from Proto-Germanic gahlaibô. Compare also Old High German galeipo (“messmate”) and Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌷𐌻𐌰𐌹𐌱𐌰 (“messmate”); and, for the semantics, compare xcl ընկեր (“friend”) literally “messmate”. More at co-, loaf. Displaced native Old English ġefēra literally “fellow traveler”. Compare company and mate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA