Library / English Dictionary

COMPANION

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

One paid to accompany or assist or live with another

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("companion" is a kind of...):

attendant; attender; tender (someone who waits on or tends to or attends to the needs of another)

Derivation:

companion (be a companion to somebody)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A friend who is frequently in the company of another

Example:

comrades in arms

Synonyms:

associate; companion; comrade; familiar; fellow

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("companion" is a kind of...):

friend (a person you know well and regard with affection and trust)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "companion"):

date; escort (a participant in a date)

playfellow; playmate (a companion at play)

tovarich; tovarisch (a comrade (especially in Russian communism))

Derivation:

companion (be a companion to somebody)

companionship (the state of being with someone)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A traveler who accompanies you

Synonyms:

companion; fellow traveler; fellow traveller

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("companion" is a kind of...):

traveler; traveller (a person who changes location)

Derivation:

companion (be a companion to somebody)

companionship (the state of being with someone)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be a companion to somebody

Synonyms:

accompany; companion; company; keep company

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "companion" is one way to...):

affiliate; associate; assort; consort (keep company with; hang out with)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Derivation:

companion (one paid to accompany or assist or live with another)

companion (a friend who is frequently in the company of another)

companion (a traveler who accompanies you)

Credits

 Context examples: 

What would we do without this increasingly cheap companion?

(Health threats caused by mobile phone radiation, EUROPARL TV)

Gifted men found a companion in him.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Two primary ideas are the accumulation of material onto a white dwarf from a companion star or the violent merger of two white dwarfs.

(Trigger for Milky Way’s Youngest Supernova Identified, NASA)

The current best explanation suggests the plasma balls were launched by an unseen companion star.

(Hubble Detects Giant 'Cannonballs' Shooting from Star, NASA)

The system is also home to four companion planets, which orbit a star half the size and mass of our sun.

(Kepler Telescope Discovers First Earth-Size Planet in 'Habitable Zone', NASA)

This inflamed his rage; he repeated his threatenings, and turning to his companions, spoke with great vehemence in the Japanese language, as I suppose, often using the word Christianos.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

A small asteroid has been discovered in an orbit around the sun that keeps it as a constant companion of Earth, and it will remain so for centuries to come.

(Small Asteroid Is Earth's Constant Companion, NASA)

The black-eyed girl smiled gratification and greeting, and showed signs of stopping, while her companion, arm linked in arm, giggled and likewise showed signs of halting.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

‘My father made the fellow gardener,’ said my companion, ‘and then, as that did not satisfy him, he was promoted to be butler.’

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Some have a companion relationship with a star, while others drift alone in space.

(NASA’s Webb Telescope to Investigate Mysterious Brown Dwarfs, NASA)