Unfriendly
adj, adv, noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 An enemy.
"Sweep the valley compound and eliminate any unfriendlies you encounter."
- 1 Not friendly; hostile; mean.
"Shrekkies will notice that the musical is going off-piste from the film right from the start when the curtain rises to reveal a seven-year-old Shrek turfed out into an unfriendly world by his parents."
- 2 Unfavourable.
- 1 not disposed to friendship or friendliness wordnet
- 2 not easy to understand or use wordnet
- 3 very unfavorable to life or growth wordnet
- 4 not friendly wordnet
- 1 in an unkind or unfriendly manner; not as a friend
Example
More examples"Mary looks unfriendly, but she is really very kind at heart."
Etymology
From Middle English unfrendly, unfrendli, unfrendely, from Old English *unfrēondlīċ (suggested by derivative unfrēondlīċe (“in an unfriendly manner; unfriendly”, adverb)), equivalent to un- + friendly. Cognate with Saterland Frisian uunfrüntelk, uunfjuntelk (“unfriendly”), West Frisian ûnfreonlik (“unfriendly”), Dutch onvriendelijk (“unfriendly”), German Low German unfrünnelk (“unfriendly”), German unfreundlich (“unfriendly”), Faroese ófryntligur (“unfriendly”), Icelandic ófrýnilegur (“ugly; disturbing”).
From Middle English unfrendli, from Old English unfrēondlīċe (“in an unfriendly manner”), equivalent to unfriend + -ly.
Related phrases
More for "unfriendly"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.