Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word
companionable. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
companionable, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
companionable in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
companionable you have here. The definition of the word
companionable will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
companionable, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Etymology
companion + -able
Adjective
companionable (comparative more companionable, superlative most companionable)
- Having the characteristics of a worthy companion; friendly and sociable.
1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights: , volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, , →OCLC:She returned presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work; and, having placed the former on the hob, drew in her seat, evidently pleased to find me so companionable.
1854, Henry David Thoreau, chapter V, in Walden, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co, published 1910, page 178:I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
1887, Benvenuto Cellini, chapter CXXI, in John Addington Symonds, transl., Autobiography, New York: P.F. Collier & Son, published 1910, page 240:All the disagreeable circumstances of my prison had become, as it were, to me friendly and companionable; not one of them gave me annoyance.
1908, G. K. Chesterton, chapter IX, in The Man Who Was Thursday, New York: Dodd, Mead & Co, published 1910, page 154:Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men.
1914, James Stephens, The Demi-Gods, New York: Macmillan, published 1921, Book II, pp. 126-7:They are a companionable food; they make a pleasant, crunching noise when they are bitten, and so, when one is eating carrots, one can listen to the sound of one's eating and make a story from it.
1992, Toni Morrison, Jazz, New York: Vintage, published 2004, page 100:Bottles of rye, purgative waters and eaux for every conceivable toilette made a companionable click in his worn carpet bag.
2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 35–36:The up and down lines ran next to each other in vault-like tunnels, whereas the Tube trains would occupy their own tunnels. That's why the cut-and-cover lines are more human than the Tubes. They are more companionable. You can see people going the other way - your perspective is broadened.
Derived terms
Translations
being worthy of companionship