English

Adjective

friendly ‎(comparative friendlier or more friendly, superlative friendliest or most friendly)

1. Generally warm, approachable and easy to relate with in character.

   Your cat seems very friendly.

   • 1909, Archibald Marshall, The Squire's Daughter, chapterI:

     They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups. The boy became volubly friendly and bubbling over with unexpected humour and high spirits.

2. Inviting, characteristic of friendliness.

   He gave a friendly smile.

3. Having an easy relationship with something, as in user-friendly etc.
4. Without any hostility.

   a friendly competition

   a friendly power or state

   • Thomas Macaulay (1800-1859)

     in friendly relations with his moderate opponents

5. Promoting the good of any person; favourable; propitious.

   a friendly breeze or gale

   • Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

     On the first friendly bank he throws him down.

6. (military) Of or pertaining to friendlies (friendly noun sense 2, below). Also applied to other bipolar confrontations, such as team sports

   The soldier was killed by friendly fire.

   • 1867 June 3, Selwyn, Jasper, “Further Particulars Regarding Moncrieff's Protected Barbette System”, in Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, volume XI, number XLIV, page 256:

     It is clear that the firing of very heavy guns, or the enemy's fire in return, would very seriously interfere with an abbatis, or anything of that kind, and it will only be something of the lightest character, or something that is placed at a considerable distance from the friendly fire, the fire of the gun itself, that would remain.

   • 1910 November 14, P.E.T., “The Franco-German War”, in Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, volume XLVI, number CLXV, page 552:

     The slaughter of one's own troops by being fired into by their friends in rear. We are very much concerned over the question of avoiding loss from the enemy's bullets while passing through the danger zone, but what have we done to avoid our bravest fellows, the survival of the fittest, those who have gotten to the front and have held on to hard-won positions—what have we done to avoid their being shot to pieces by friendly fire? Absolutely nothing that we have ever heard of—and yet this is one of the most serious problems that confronts the leader of troops. Courage before the enemy will quail before a fire from the rear.

7. (number theory) Being or relating to two or more natural numbers with a common abundancy.

   friendly numbers;  friendly pairs;  friendly n-tuples

8. (in compounds) Not damaging to, or compatible with (the compounded noun)

   The cobbled streets aren't very bike-friendly.

   Organic farms only use soil-friendly fertilisers.

   Our sandwiches are made with dolphin-friendly tuna.

   • 2016 October 22, Rami G Khouri, “Lebanese oligarchy preserves its interests once again”, in Aljazeera:

     Hariri even nominated Hezbollah-friendly Sleiman Frangieh for the presidency, which by tradition is held by a Maronite Christian; but Hezbollah and Aoun held out, insisting that Aoun would be president or there would be no president at all.

Antonyms

• hostile
• unfriendly

Hyponyms

• family-friendly
• print-friendly, printer-friendly
• radio-friendly
• user-friendly

Derived terms

• friendliness

Related terms

• friendly fire
• Friendly Islands

Translations

Adverb

friendly ‎(comparative more friendly, superlative most friendly)

1. (now rare) In a friendly manner, like a friend.
   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica:

     And we cannot doubt, our Brothers in Physick [...] will friendly accept, if not countenance our endeavours.

Synonyms

• amicably, friendlily

Translations

Noun

friendly ‎(plural friendlies)

1. (sports) A game which is of no consequence in terms of ranking, betting etc.

   Even as friendlies, derbies often arouse strong emotions

2. A person or entity on the same side in a conflict.
   • E. N. Bennett

     These were speedily routed by the friendlies, who attacked the small force before them in fine style.

   • 2008, Dennis Wengert, A Very Healthy Insanity (page 44)

     You see, the mission of almost every teenage girl on the loose is to first identify the targets, just like a war. These include the primary objective (the boy), the enemy (other girls), the friendlies (sympathetic girl friends and the boy's family), and unfriendlies (other boys).

Translations