buddy
UK/ˈbʌdi/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northern England/ˈbʊdi/
buddy noun: a friend or casual acquaintance.
Noun
buddy (plural buddies)
- A friend or casual acquaintance.
- They have been buddies since they were in school.
- He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me.1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 23
- A partner for a particular activity.
- drinking buddies
- A workmate assigned to work closely with another.
- Near-synonym: butty
- training buddies [mentor/mentee]
- 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.
Pronoun
buddy
- A person far removed from the conversation.
- I found some earphones in the pocket, buddy must have been pissed.
- Buddy's loaded. 'Got like three houses.
Verb
buddy (third-person singular simple present buddies, present participle buddying, simple past and past participle buddied)
- To assign a buddy, or partner, to.
- 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.2007, Philip Briggs, Danny Edmunds, Mozambique: The Bradt Travel Guide, →ISBN, page 86
Adjective
buddy (comparative more buddy, superlative most buddy)
- 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.1963, John Herbert Goddard, Chrysanthemum Growers' Treasury, page 18
Proper noun capitalized: Buddy
Buddy
- A male nickname.
- A male given name from English.
- A given name for a dog.
buddy meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
buddy in Hindi
- buddy, friend, pal, companion
- यार yār
buddy in Urdu
- دوست, یار
buddy in Bengali
- বন্ধু, ভাইডি, ভায়া
buddy in Malayalam
- buddy; dude
- ഗെഡി geḍi
More languagesFewer languages
- buddy in Indonesian
- sobat
- buddy in Persian
- رفیق rafiq
Examples of buddy in a sentence
- In plain view of the entire party, Douggie and his buddies skinned up and started getting high.
- When he said I wasn't there, I told him I was, and my buddy backed me up.
- Use the buddy system so that you can look after each other on the trip.
Synonyms of buddy
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of buddy
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | buddies |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | buddies |
| present participle | buddying |
| past participle | buddied |
| past | buddied |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more buddy |
| superlative | most buddy |
| Proper noun | |
| alternative form | Buddie |
Origin of buddy
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.
Words formed from buddy
- accountability buddy
- asshole buddy
- battle buddy
- birthday buddy
- blow buddy
- blow-buddy
- blowbuddy
- bosom buddy
- bud
- buddy bench
- buddy block
- buddy booth
- buddy boy
- buddy breathe
- buddy-buddy
- buddy cop
- buddy film
- buddyhood
- buddyish
- buddy list
- buddy memory allocation
- buddy movie
- buddyness
- buddy pack
- buddy parent
- buddy parenting
- buddy pod
- buddy punching
- Buddyroll
- buddyroo
- buddyslash
- buddy store
- buddy system
- buddy taping
- buddy up
- buddy wrapping
- bus buddy
- buttbuddy
- butt buddy
- cuddle buddy
- cut buddy
- cyberbuddy
- double buddy
- e-buddy
- fuck buddy
- quit buddy
- study buddy
- trollbuddy
- buddy-up
Phrases with buddy
- buddy cops
- buddy pods
- buddy buddy
- buddy films
- buddy lists
- buddy packs
- buddy blocks
- buddy booths
- buddy bottle
- buddy movies
- buddy stores
- buddy benches
6 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with buddy
Questions about buddy
- What does buddy mean?
- Buddy means a friend or casual acquaintance.
- What is buddy in Hindi?
- Buddy in Hindi is यार (yār). See Buddy meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is buddy?
- Buddy can be a noun, a pronoun, a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce buddy?
- Buddy is pronounced /ˈbʌdi/ (UK).
- What is the plural of buddy?
- The plural of buddy is buddies.
Words near buddy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: buddy (page history and authors); Buddy (page history and authors); यार (Hindi) (page history and authors); buddy (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); buddy (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ഗെഡി (Malayalam) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-buddy.ogg.
Cite this entry: “buddy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/buddy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.