# buddy

Pronunciation: say "BUD-ee" /ˈbʌd.i/

## Noun

1. A friend or casual acquaintance.
   - Simple: A friend, or someone you know and get along with.
   - _He called his old college buddy to catch up after years apart._
   - _The two became fast buddies during summer camp._
2. A person paired with another for a particular activity, such as training or hiking.
   - Simple: A person who does an activity with you, such as a sport or a class.
   - _Every new recruit is paired with a training buddy for the first month._
   - _Hiking buddies should agree on a turnaround time before setting off._
3. An informal, friendly way of addressing a stranger, usually a man, and sometimes used as a placeholder name with an occasionally hostile tone.
   - Simple: A way to talk to someone you do not know, usually a man. It is often friendly but can sound angry.
   - _Need a hand with those bags, buddy?_
   - _A driver leaned out and yelled, 'Move it, buddy!'_

## Verb

4. To assign a partner to someone for a particular activity.
   - Simple: To pair someone with a partner for a task or activity.
   - _The program buddies first-year students with senior mentors._
   - _Ask the dive shop to buddy you with someone at your own experience level._

## Pronoun

5. Used to refer to someone who is out of earshot or otherwise not involved in the conversation. *(Canada)*
   - Simple: A person who is far away from or not part of the talk going on.
   - _Buddy at the far end of the pier won't catch our signal._
   - _Buddy next door has been mowing his lawn since six this morning._

## Other meanings

- (adjective) Having the appearance of a plant bud.

## Origin

First recorded around 1788 in the writings of Charles Dibdin, the word is of uncertain origin. It may be a child-talk alteration of 'brother' (as *bruddy or *bruthy), or perhaps from the British colloquial 'butty' ('companion'), an older dialect term for a workmate linked to coal mining and thought to go back to about 1530 as 'booty fellow', a partner one shares loot with. Another suggestion compares Scots 'buddo' or 'bodda' ('buddy, dear'), related to Icelandic 'budda' ('purse'; also 'short, stout person').

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/buddy (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).