buddy

• IPA^(key): /bʌd.i/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌdi

1802, 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.[1]

buddy (plural buddies)

1. A friend or casual acquaintance.

   They have been buddies since they were in school.

2. A partner for a particular activity.

   drinking buddies

3. An informal and friendly address to a stranger; a friendly placeholder name for a person one does not know.

   Hey, buddy, I think you dropped this.

• (friend or acquaintance): mate
• (address to a stranger): mate

• See also Thesaurus:friend

buddy (third-person singular simple present buddies, present participle buddying, simple past and past participle buddied)

1. (transitive) To assign a buddy, or partner, to.
   • 2007, Philip Briggs & Danny Edmunds, Mozambique: The Bradt Travel Guide‎, →ISBN, page 86:

     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.

bud +‎ -y

buddy (comparative more buddy, superlative most buddy)

1. Resembling a bud.
   • 1963, John Herbert Goddard, Chrysanthemum Growers' Treasury (page 18)

     Some of the dwarfer varieties are full of buddy growths in the early stages and these must be cut down and thrown away.