Buddy
adj, name, noun, pron, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A friend or casual acquaintance.
"They have been buddies since they were in school."
- 2 a close friend who accompanies their buddies in their activities wordnet
- 3 A partner for a particular activity.
"drinking buddies"
- 4 An informal and friendly address to a stranger, usually male; a friendly (or occasionally antagonistic) placeholder name for a person one does not know.
"Hey, buddy, I think you dropped this."
- 1 To assign a buddy, or partner, to. transitive
"If you are being formally buddied, have a good chat with your buddy and find out their interests -- these should more or less match your own."
- 1 Resembling a bud.
"Some of the dwarfer varieties are full of buddy growths in the early stages and these must be cut down and thrown away."
- 1 A person far removed from the conversation.
"I found some earphones in the pocket, buddy must have been pissed."
- 1 A male nickname.
- 2 A male given name from English. US, rare
- 3 A given name for a dog.
Example
More examples"If you buddy up to everybody and anybody, pretty soon people will think you're just a people-pleaser."
Etymology
First appears c. 1788, in the writings of Charles Dibdin, of uncertain origin. Possibly from *bruddy, *bruthy, a child-talk alteration of brother. Alternatively, perhaps from British colloquial butty (“companion”), also the form of an older dialect term meaning workmate, associated with coal mining. Itself believed derived from 1530 as booty fellow, a partner with whom one shares booty or loot. Alternatively, compare Scots buddo, bodda (“buddy, kiddo, dear”), related to Icelandic budda (“purse"; also "short, stout person”).
From Middle English buddy, buddi, equivalent to bud + -y.
From buddy.
Related phrases
More for "buddy"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.