comrade

noun

com·rade ˈkäm-ˌrad

-rəd,

especially British -ˌrād

Synonyms of comrade next

: an intimate friend or associate : companion

" … reflecting upon all my comrades that were drowned … "—

Daniel Defoe

: a fellow soldier

comrades in battle

[from its use as a form of address by communists] : communist

comradeliness

ˈkäm-ˌrad-lē-nəs

noun

comradely adjective

comradeship

ˈkäm-ˌrad-ˌship

noun

Did you know?

In Latin, camara or camera denoted a vaulted ceiling or roof. Later, the word simply mean “room, chamber” and was inherited by many European languages with that meaning. In the Spanish, the word became cámara, and a derivative of that was camarada “a group of soldiers quartered in a room” and hence “fellow soldier, companion.” That Spanish word was borrowed into French as camarade and then into Elizabethan English as both camerade and comerade.

Examples of comrade in a Sentence

He enjoys spending time with his old army comrades. the boy, and two others who are known to be his comrades, are wanted for questioning by the police

Recent Examples on the Web After her death, Crawford, Campbell, Evangelista and Turlington paid their respects to their runway comrade. —

Michelle Lee, Peoplemag, 21 Sep. 2023 As a rule, age predicts check usage: Three-quarters of retirement-age Americans still use checks, compared with fewer than a tenth of their college-age comrades. —

Andrew Van Dam, Washington Post, 15 Sep. 2023 People were scattering about and running to find their comrades. —

Chris Klimek, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Sep. 2023 These coy performances of open-mindedness imply that they’ve been thrust together by the unreasonableness of their former comrades, united in a more urgent cause than anyone in mainstream politics is willing to recognize. —

Laura Marsh, The New Republic, 5 Sep. 2023 When the cyclist Lance Armstrong walked in, one of his comrades was in awe. —

Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 28 Aug. 2023 While Achilles sulks in his tent, his beloved comrade, Patroclus, who shares his bed, bravely joins the battle in Achilles’ armor. —

Judith Thurman, The New Yorker, 11 Sep. 2023 What’s more, scientists from the University of Michigan have found that fruit flies who witness their dead comrades age faster and die sooner. —

Alex Orlando, Discover Magazine, 31 Aug. 2023 When the soldiers are not uniformed officers of the state and the battlefront is not a distant prospect, war becomes part of everyday life: sisters turn into comrades and villages produce battalions. —

Sarah E. Parkinson, Foreign Affairs, 22 Aug. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'comrade.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Middle French camarade group sleeping in one room, roommate, companion, from Old Spanish camarada, from cámara room, from Late Latin camera, camara — more at chamber

First Known Use

1544, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Time Traveler

The first known use of comrade was in 1544

See more words from the same year