friendship

friendship, amity, comity, goodwill are comparable when they denote the relation (or, in the first three instances, the alliance) existing between persons, communities, states, or peoples that are in accord and in sympathy with each other.

Friendship is the strongest of these terms in its implications of sentiment in the relation and of closeness of attachment

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the friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break— Penn

}

Sometimes it suggests an alliance; at other times it excludes that suggestion

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peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none— Jefferson

}

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friendship, that exquisite sense of a mutual sympathy of heart and mind which occasionally arises between independent individuals— Cecil

}

Amity implies the absence of enmity or discord. Positively, it may imply nothing more than amicable relations

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the colonists and the Indians seldom lived together in amity

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or it may suggest reciprocal friendliness

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on his arrival he found amity instead of enmity awaiting him. Father Vaillant had already endeared himself to the people— Cather

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Often the term suggests benevolent understanding and mutual tolerance of potentially antagonistic aims or views

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the amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie— Shak.

}

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the less we have to do with the amities or enmities of Europe, the better— Jefferson

}

Comity has come to imply comradeship based either upon an interchange of courtesies or upon a similarity of interests and aims. The word often denotes a group bound together by friendship or by common interests but without implying loss of independence by members of the group or transference of sovereignty from the members to the group

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out- side the comity of the empire, beyond the border provinces and client-kingdoms, lay the unknown lands and the strange peoples— Buchan

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a Europe which pretends to have founded its comity upon brotherhood—La Barre

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Goodwill derives its chief implication of a benevolent attitude or of reciprocal good feeling largely from the Authorized Version's translation of the Angelic Hymn

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glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men— Lk 2:14

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The term is often used in international diplomacy to designate a reciprocal friendliness which constitutes an informal bond between nations and works to the advantage of all concerned

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goodwill is the mightiest practical force in the universe— Dole

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to promote the exchange of intellectual ideas and goodwill between Belgium and America— School and Society

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be assured that none of us have anything but goodwill toward you personally— Ellison

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Analogous words: sympathy, affinity, *attraction: *sympathy, empathy: accord, concord, consonance, *harmony: *alliance, league, coalition, fusion, federation

Antonyms: animosity

Contrasted words: *enmity, hostility, antagonism, antipathy, rancor: *hate, hatred