different between agreeable vs companionable

English

Etymology

From Middle English agreable, from Old French agreable; displaced native Old English cweme (“pleasing, agreeable”). Equivalent to agree +? -able.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /????i??bl/

Adjective

agreeable (comparative more agreeable, superlative most agreeable)

1. pleasant to the senses or the mind

   • the train of agreeable reveries.

2. (dated) Willing; ready to agree or consent.
   • 1529, Hugh Latimer, sermon in Cambridge

     These Frenchmen give unto the said captain of Calais a great sum of money, so that he will be but content and agreeable that they may enter into the said town.

3. Agreeing or suitable; followed by to, or rarely by with.

   Synonyms: conformable, correspondent, concordant
4. In pursuance, conformity, or accordance; used adverbially

Synonyms

• (pleasing, pleasant): See Thesaurus:pleasant
• (willing): See Thesaurus:acquiescent
• (conforming): See Thesaurus:agreeable

Translations

Noun

agreeable (plural agreeables)

1. Something pleasing; anything that is agreeable.
   • 1855, Blackwood's magazine (volume 77, page 331)

     The disagreeables of travelling are necessary evils, to be encountered for the sake of the agreeables of resting and looking round you.

Further reading

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

English

Etymology

companion +? -able

Adjective

companionable (comparative more companionable, superlative most companionable)

1. Having the characteristics of a worthy companion; friendly and sociable.

   • She returned presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work; and, having placed the former on the hob, drew in her seat, evidently pleased to find me so companionable.

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1910, Chapter V, p. 178, [1]

     I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

   • 1887, Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography, translated by John Addington Symonds, New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, Chapter CXXI, p. 240, [2]

     All the disagreeable circumstances of my prison had become, as it were, to me friendly and companionable; not one of them gave me annoyance.

   • 1908, G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday, New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1910, Chapter IX, p. 154, [3]

     Then he strolled back again, kicking his heels carelessly, and a companionable silence fell between the three men.

   • 1914, James Stephens, The Demi-Gods, New York: Macmillan, 1921, Book II, pp. 126-7, [4]

     They are a companionable food; they make a pleasant, crunching noise when they are bitten, and so, when one is eating carrots, one can listen to the sound of one's eating and make a story from it.

   • 1992, Toni Morrison, Jazz, New York: Vintage, 2004, p. 100,

     Bottles of rye, purgative waters and eaux for every conceivable toilette made a companionable click in his worn carpet bag.

Derived terms

Translations