Other forms: farewells
A farewell is a parting, and the good wishes said at one. Say farewell, a farewell party, a fond farewell.
As an exclamation it is old-fashioned and deliberate — Farewell! belongs to plays and ceremony rather than a doorstep. As a noun and adjective it is entirely current: a farewell dinner, a farewell tour, bid farewell. Note that farewell tours have a poor record of being final, which the phrase now carries a hint of. The literal sense is a wish rather than a goodbye: fare well, meaning travel safely.
1nounfarewellA parting, and the good wishes said at one.
“The farewell went on for about two hours.”
2adjectivemarkingMarking a departure.
“It was billed as a farewell tour and there have been three since.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
farewell is a parting.
Old English fare wel is an imperative: fare, meaning to travel or get on, plus well. Goodbye came from God be with you, so English says either travel safely or may God go with you, both of which assume the other person is leaving.
Old English
*far wel!
Middle English
farewel
English, today
farewell
From Middle English farewel, from fare wel! (and the variants with the personal pronoun "fare ye well" and "fare you well" used in the Renaissance), an imperative expression, possibly further derived from Old English far wel!, equivalent to fare + well. Compare Scots farewele, fairweill (“farewell”), stq Foarwäil (“farewell”), West Frisian farwol (“farewell”), German Fahrwol, Fahrwohl, East Frisian forwal, Dutch vaarwel (“farewell (sadly)”), Danish farvel (“farewell”), Norwegian farvel (“farewell”), Swedish farväl (“farewell”), Faroese farvæl (“goodbye”), Icelandic far vel (“farewell”). The extensive list of cognates suggests a postulated ultimate Proto-Germanic phrase of origin, possibly something akin to far wela.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA