bedfellow
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English bedfelawe, equivalent to bed + fellow.
Noun[edit]
bedfellow (plural bedfellows)
- One with whom one shares a bed.
- Synonym: bedmate
- c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v], page 226:
- Yong budding Virgin, faire, and freſh,& ſweet, / Whether away, or whether is thy aboade? / Happy the Parents of ſo faire a childe; / Happier the man whom fauourable ſtars / Alot thee for his louely bedfellow.
- 1630, Philip Massinger, The Renegado, a Tragæ Comedie. As It Hath Beene Often Acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants, at the Priuate Play-house in Drurye-Lane., London: […] A[ugustine] M[athewes] for Iohn Waterson, […], act III, scene IV:
- Car[azie]. / In the day I waite on my Lady when ſhe eates, / Carry her pantophles, beare vp her trayne / Sing her aſleepe at night, and when ſhe pleaſes / I am her bedfellow. / Gaz[et]. / How? her bedfellow, / And lye with her? / Car[azie]. / Yes, and lye with her.
- 1922, “Prometheus Bound”, in Geoffrey Montagu Cookson, transl., Four Plays of Aeschylus, page 203:
- Therefore, grave mistresses of fate, I pray / That I may never live to see the day / When Zeus takes me for his bedfellow;
- (by extension) An associate, often an otherwise improbable one.
- 1873, Anthony Trollope, chapter 40, in Phineas Redux[1]:
- They say that "misfortune makes men acquainted with strange bedfellows". The old hereditary Whig Cabinet ministers must, no doubt, by this time have learned to feel themselves at home with strange neighbours at their elbows.
- 1972, Carol A. Nemeyer, Scholarly Reprint Publishing in the United States, New York, N.Y.: R. R. Bowker Co., →ISBN, page 8:
- Certain aspects of reprint publishing are more akin to university press publishing than to any other sector of the publishing industry, but the relationships between the two frequently create unwilling bedfellows.
- 2011 February 12, Les Roopanarine, “Birmingham 1 - 0 Stoke”, in BBC[2]:
- Statistics and truth can be uneasy bedfellows when it comes to football, but one fact could not be ignored: neither side has a player with more than seven goals to his name.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
an associate, often an otherwise improbable one
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