Other forms: enmities
Enmity is deep and lasting hostility. Long-standing enmity, the enmity between them, bitter enmity.
The length of it is what defines the word, since a quarrel that ends is not enmity at all. Enmity between families outlasts anybody who still remembers what started it.
1nounenmityDeep and lasting hostility.
“The enmity between the two villages went back to a boundary dispute.”
enmity is a hostility.
ENMITY → what you keep for an ENEMY
What you hold for an enemy, and go on holding for years after.
hooks ontoenemy
Old French enemiste comes from Latin inimicus, an enemy, from in plus amicus, a friend.
Middle English
enemyte
English, today
enmity
Built from
From Middle English enemyte. From Middle English enemyte, from Old French enemisté, ennemistié, from Latin -, Vulgar Latin inimīcitās, from Latin inimīcus (“enemy”). Cognate with French inimitié, Portuguese inimizade, Spanish enemistad. by surface analysis, en(e)m(y) + enemy + ity.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA