mateyness

mateyness

English

Etymology

From matey +‎ -ness.

Noun

mateyness (uncountable)

1. The state of being matey, camaraderie, chumminess.
   • 1952, Harper's Magazine, Volume 204, page 38,

     Lacking mateyness, he lacks also the true imperiousness which is sometimes an effective substitute for the common touch.

   • 1993, D. G. Compton, Nomansland, 2011, Orion Publishing, unnumbered page,

     Harriet didn′t answer. Fovas was a po-faced cow. She′d been right to distrust the mateyness.

   • 2000, The London Magazine, page 68,

     In spite of our arguments, we had much in common, both suburban London boys from unambitious working-class families, and fell easily into a cockney mateyness.

   • 2011, Paul Theroux, The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road, page 100,

     He could not cook, drive a car, or use a typewriter, so he was helpless alone. Greene seemed to require the mateyness of another person — his friend Michael Meyer, who traveled with him through the Pacific, or later in his life the priest Father Duran, who appears in Monsignor Quixote. Greene claimed to be manic depressive, sometimes suicidal, and lonely.

See also

• mateship