Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Heartily friendly and congenial.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An intimate companion; a pleasant or genial companion.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An intimate companion.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An intimate companion.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective heartily friendly and congenial

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From the obsolete greeting hail, fellow!.]

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Examples

  • I met their gazes and tried to shoot a casual hail-fellow kind of look.

    Long Way Home Laura Caldwell 2010

  • The very lack now of hail-fellow chumminess is, frankly, very odd.

    Michael Wolff: BP: Blame the Brits 2010

  • There was none of the usual hail-fellow cordiality that I had encountered in my previous meetings with politicians.

    Dealings Felix Rohatyn 2010

  • The very lack now of hail-fellow chumminess is, frankly, very odd.

    Michael Wolff: BP: Blame the Brits 2010

  • He had a hail-fellow manner that some passengers adopt in the company of pilots.

    William Langewiesche on the Amazon air crash Langewiesche, William 2009

  • Still, beneath a hail-fellow manner, Bush has a defensive edge, a don't-tread-on-me prickliness.

    Bush in the Bubble 2007

  • A snippet of the article:When things go bad for a client--and we're talking off the cliff--the respectable barrister known for his or her brilliant transactional mind, hail-fellow connections and Ivy League charm may have to bring in a different type of attorney.

    02/10/2007 2007

  • Rogers delighted Clemens by treating him with bluff hail-fellow humor, the sort that Howells always reached for but never quite managed to pull off.

    Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005

  • Rogers delighted Clemens by treating him with bluff hail-fellow humor, the sort that Howells always reached for but never quite managed to pull off.

    Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005

  • At eight in the morning, we go in dishabille to the Pump-room which is crowded like a Welsh fair; and there you see the highest quality, and the lowest trades folks, jostling each other, without ceremony, hail-fellow well-met.

    The Expedition of Humphry Clinker 2004

Comments

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  • (interjection/adjective) - An expression of intimacy. To be hail-fellow with anyone, to be on such a footing as to greet him with "hail-fellow" at meeting. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859

    February 7, 2018