frenemy
nounEtymology
Blend of friend + enemy. Invented independently multiple times. Attested in 1952 without any scare quotes or self-referential apology, clearly suggesting that the writer expected his audience to be unsurprised by encountering the word, but used by other writers in 1979 and 1992 in ways that indicate that those writers considered it a nonce blend and expected that their audiences would view it that way too; these examples are evidence that the word existed for many decades during which it was not yet widely familiar or established (which it now is).
Definitions
Someone who has traits of an enemy and a friend.
- Another enemy / Not even a frenemy.
- Frenemies who when you're down ain't your friend
A fair-weather friend who is also a rival.
- So, we're definitely not going to be friends with Ferguson? Maybe we can be frenemies. A love-hate relationship's the next best thing.
The neighborhood
- neighborkeep your friends close, and your enemies closer
- neighborbackfriend
- neighborlove-hate
- neighboron-again, off-again
- neighborkismesis
Derived
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for frenemy. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA