enmity

English

Alternative forms

Variant spellings

α forms (tetrasyllabic): (14 th-century): enemyte enemytee ennemite ennemyte (15 th-century): enemyte enemytee ennemite ennemyte enymyte

(16 th-century): enemitie enemyte enemytee enimitie enimity ennemite ennemyte ennimitie inimity

β forms (trisyllabic): (14 th-century): enmite enmitye enmyte enmytee (15 th-century): enmyte enmytee

(16 th-century): enmity enmyte enmytee (17 th-century–present): enmity

Etymology

From Old French enemistié, ennemistié, from Late Latin *inimīcitāt(em), from Latin inimīcus (“enemy”); cognates: French inimitié, Portuguese inimizade, Spanish enemistad.

Pronunciation

• (RP) IPA: /ˈɛnmɪtɪ/
• (US) IPA: /'ɛnmɪtiː/

• Audio (US)

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Noun

enmity (plural enmities)

1. The quality of being an enemy; hostile or unfriendly disposition.
   • 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 242e.

     Some later Muses from Ionia and Sicily reckoned it safest to weave together both versions and say that that which is is both many and one, held together by both enmity and amity.

2. A state or feeling of opposition, hostility, hatred or animosity.

Quotations

• 1611, King James Version of the Bible (Authorized Version), Genesis 3:15

  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Synonyms

• hostility, antagonism, animosity, rancor, antipathy, animus

Antonyms

• amity

Translations

hostile or unfriendly disposition

Albanian: armiqësi Bulgarian: вражда (bg) f., враждебност (bg) f. Dutch: vijandschap French: inimitié (fr) f. Greek: εχθρότητα (el) (echthrótita) f., έχθρα (el) (échthra) f., μύνις (el) (mýnis) f.

Old English: fǣhþ (ang) f. Portuguese: inimizade f. Romanian: dușmănie (ro) f., inimiciție (ro) f. Russian: враждебность (ru) (vražd'ébnost') f., вражда (ru) (vraždá) f., неприязнь (ru) (neprijázn') f.

References

• enmity in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• enmity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• Notes: