friendly

UK/ˈfɹɛnd.li/US/ˈfɹɛnd.li/

adjectiveA15 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,221 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: friendlies, friendlier, friendliest

Friendly describes someone who is warm and easy to talk to. The neighbour who says hello over the fence, the waiter who remembers what you ordered last time, a dog that comes straight over with its tail going.

The prepositions split the meaning, so watch them: to be friendly TO someone is to treat them kindly, while to be friendly WITH someone is to be close to them. English has turned the word into an ending as well — user-friendly, child-friendly, dog-friendly, eco-friendly — each one meaning easy or safe for that group. In the army, friendly fire is the bitter phrase for being shot at by your own side. In British football a friendly is a match played for practice with nothing at stake. And there is no adverb: you say he smiled in a friendly way, never friendlily.

Definitions of friendly

1adjectivefriendlyBehaving in a warm and open way towards other people.A1~2%
“The staff were friendly without being pushy.”
synonyms: warm, approachable, genial
2adjectivecloseClose to someone; on good terms with them.A2~4%
“She is friendly with the woman who runs the shop.”
3adjectivehostileNot hostile; on your own side.B2~33%
“The plane finally crossed into friendly airspace.”
4adjectiveeasyEasy or safe for a particular group, used at the end of a compound.B1~57%
“The whole menu is child-friendly.”
5nounsportsA sports match played for practice rather than as part of a competition, in British use.B2~4%
“They lost the friendly but rested three injured players.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 24 sentences found in the wild and placed 24 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Where it comes from

Friendly is Old English frēondlīċ — friend with the ending -līċ, which is the ancestor of the modern -ly. Proto-Germanic had it as *frijōndlīkaz, and the cousins are still recognisable across the North Sea: Dutch vriendelijk, German freundlich, West Frisian freonlik. It has meant friend-like for well over a thousand years.

Proto-Germanic
*frijōndlīkaz
Old English
frēondlīċ
Middle English
frendly
English, today
friendly

From Middle English frendly, freendly, frendely, frendlich, from Old English frēondlīċ, from Proto-Germanic frijōndlīkaz, equivalent to friend + -ly. Cognate with stq früntelk, fjuntelk (“friendly”), West Frisian freonlik (“friendly”), Dutch vriendelijk (“friendly”), German Low German fründelk, frünnelk (“friendly”), German freundlich (“friendly”). a doublet of friendlike.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Feelings & Character, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

friendly in the wild

Training accidents and bloodless incidents also do not qualify as friendly fire in terms of casualty reporting.
Friendly fire
Use of the term friendly in a military context for allied personnel started during the First World War, often when shells fell short of the targeted enemy.
Friendly fire
KIAs include those killed by friendly fire during combat, but not from incidents such as accidental vehicle crashes, murder, or other non-hostile events or terrorism.
Killed in action
A month later, on May 28, 2004, the Pentagon notified the Tillman family that he was actually killed by friendly fire.
Pat Tillman
To ensure the successful meeting of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) companies are advised to employ environmental friendly processes in their production.
Environmentally friendly process

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

Definitions of friendly

1adjectivefriendlyBehaving in a warm and open way towards other people.A1~2%

“The staff were friendly without being pushy.”

synonyms: warm, approachable, genial

2adjectivecloseClose to someone; on good terms with them.A2~4%

“She is friendly with the woman who runs the shop.”

3adjectivehostileNot hostile; on your own side.B2~33%

“The plane finally crossed into friendly airspace.”

4adjectiveeasyEasy or safe for a particular group, used at the end of a compound.B1~57%

“The whole menu is child-friendly.”

5nounsportsA sports match played for practice rather than as part of a competition, in British use.B2~4%

“They lost the friendly but rested three injured players.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 24 sentences found in the wild and placed 24 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.