fellow

fellow
   The original sense of this word was business-partner, but by the fourteenth century it also had the meaning of companion in a more general sense. It became the usual way of addressing a male servant, and at first would have been thought to be no more condescending than ‘my friend’. The habitual association with servants and men of low rank gradually made it impossible to use the word other than insultingly to a man of equal station. ‘None of your fellow,’ says Partridge, in Fielding’s Tom Jones, when a woman addresses him in that way.
   ‘Who’s to prove to me that you are Mr Ramornie?’ says a character in St Ives, by R. L.Stevenson.
   ‘Fellow!’ says the narrator. ‘“O, fellow as much as you please!” said he. “Fellow, with all my heart!
   That changes nothing. I am fellow, of course - obtrusive fellow, impudent fellow, if you like - but who are you?”’ Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers objects to being described as a fellow, even though not addressed as one. These unpleasant associations with the word disappear immediately when it is qualified vocatively, as in: old fellow, my dear fellow, my good fellow, young fellow, poor fellow, etc. In Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens, a man talking to his equal, and normally addressing him as ‘Mr’ + last name, switches to ‘my good fellow’, ‘if you’ll excuse the freedom of that form of address…’. ‘My fine fellow’ is used in a friendly way in Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H.Lawrence, the male speaker addressing another man. Here ‘fellow’ has clearly reverted to its meaning of friend, one with whom one is on hail-fellow-well-met terms. Such usage, especially ‘old fellow’ and ‘my dear fellow’, would still be heard in modern Britain amongst middle-class speakers of a certain age. In the USA ‘fellow’ is usable on its own in neutral settings, with a meaning that has been reduced to something like ‘man’. Its relaxed pronunciation is frequently indicated by the spelling ‘fella’. ‘Wait a minute, will you, fella?’ says a character in Audition, a short story by Dawn Powell. ‘Whaddya mean, fella? occurs in Judith Rossner’s Any Minute I can Split, used to a young man by another, who is called ‘man’ in return. ‘Feller’ is also used as a spelling variant, especially by British writers. It is especially likely to occur in the collocation ‘young-feller-me-lad’, addressed to a young man or boy in a friendly way.
   In modern times, whether used alone or as part of a vocative group, ‘fellow’ no longer carries demeaning or contemptuous undertones. This is especially true when ‘fellows’ is used to a group of men. In Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis, the chairman at one point says: ‘Take your seats, fellows!’ varying the usual formula which would have included ‘boys’ as the vocative.
   As an element other than the headword in a vocative group, ‘fellow’ means something like ‘similar to me, the speaker’. It occurs especially when a group of people are being addressed. Thus a preacher in George Silverman’s Explanation, by Charles Dickens, uses ‘my friends and fellow-sinners’ to his audience. ‘Fellow townsmen’ occurs in a political speech in Scenes of Clerical Life, by George Eliot. Political speakers were perhaps especially fond of the word in the nineteenth century, since Dickens chooses to satirize them in Hard Times. He has Slackbridge, representative of the United Aggregate Tribunal, address a group of workers using phrases like ‘oh my friends and fellow-countrymen, the slaves of an iron-handed and a grinding despotism’, ‘oh my friends and fellow-sufferers, and fellowworkmen, and fellow-men!’ In a later speech occurs: ‘Oh my friends and fellow-countrymen, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown; oh, my fellow-brothers, and fellow-workmen, and fellowcitizens, and fellow-men…’. All this contrasts greatly with the simple but effective oratory of Stephen Blackpool, who addresses the same group as ‘my friends’ and ‘my brothers’.

A dictionary of epithets and terms of address . . 2015.

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Synonyms:
, , / , , / , , / (of a college, participating in its instruction and sharing its revenues)


Look at other dictionaries:

  • Fellow — Fel low, n. [OE. felawe, felaghe, Icel. f[=e]lagi, fr. f[=e]lag companionship, prop., a laying together of property; f[=e] property + lag a laying, pl. l[ o]g law, akin to liggja to lie. See {Fee}, and {Law}, {Lie} to be low.] 1. A companion; a… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • fellow — in its meaning ‘belonging to the same class or activity’ used attributively (before a noun), is sometimes hyphened and sometimes written as a separate word: fellow citizen or fellow citizen. The modern tendency is to spell such combinations as… …   Modern English usage

  • fellow — Ⅰ. fellow UK US /ˈfeləʊ/ adjective [before noun] ► used to describe someone who has the same job or interests as you, or is in the same situation as you: »A member of staff was sacked for stealing from fellow employees. Ⅱ. fellow UK US /ˈfeləʊ/… …   Financial and business terms

  • Fellow — Тип Эмулятор Разработчик Dan Sutherland, Riot777, Peter Schau, Rainer Sinsch, Marco Nova Написана на Си со вставками на Ассемблере Операционная система Кроссплатформенное программное обеспечение Последняя версия v0.0.4a (xFellow), v0.4.4… …   Википедия

  • fellow — [fel′ō, fel′ə] n. [ME felaghe < Late OE feolaga, partner < feoh (see FEE) + laga, a laying down (see LAW), after ON félagi: basic sense, “one laying down wealth for a joint undertaking”; FELLOW senses 5, 6, 7, after L socius: see ASSOCIATE] …   English World dictionary

  • Fellow — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Fellow es un emulador diseñado para ejecutar programas de Amiga. Fue publicado un poco después de la primera versión funcional de UAE. La comptetitividad entre estos dos proyectos, hizo que se ambos se beneficiasen.… …   Wikipedia Español

  • fellow — c.1200, from O.E. feolaga fellow, partner, from O.N. felagi, from fe money (see FEE (Cf. fee)) + verbal base denoting lay (see LAY (Cf. lay) (v.)). Sense is of one who puts down money with another in a joint venture. Used familiarly since mid 15c …   Etymology dictionary

  • fellow — ● fellow nom masculin (anglais fellow, compagnon) Dans les universités anglaises, membre (en général enseignant) d une corporation jouissant des revenus attachés à un collège. (Le terme désigne aussi les membres de certaines sociétés savantes.) …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • fellow — FÉLĂU/ s. m. (în universităţile engleze) membru al unei corporaţii. (< engl. fellow) Trimis de raduborza, 15.09.2007. Sursa: MDN …   Dicționar Român

  • fellow — ► NOUN 1) informal a man or boy. 2) a person in the same position or otherwise associated with another. 3) a thing of the same kind as or otherwise associated with another. 4) a member of a learned society. 5) Brit. an incorporated senior member… …   English terms dictionary

  • Fellow — Fel low, v. t. To suit with; to pair with; to match. [Obs.] Shak. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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