fellowship

English Online Dictionary. What means fellowship‎? What does fellowship mean?

English

Etymology

From Middle English felowschipe, felawshipe, felaȝschyp, equivalent to fellow +‎ -ship; or perhaps adapted from Old Norse félagskapr, félagsskapr (“fellowship”). Compare Icelandic félagsskapur (“companionship, company, community”), Danish fællesskab (“fellowship”), Norwegian fellesskap (“fellowship”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɛləʃɪp/, /ˈfɛləʊʃɪp/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɛləʃɪp/, /ˈfɛloʊʃɪp/
• Hyphenation: fel‧low‧ship

Noun

fellowship (countable and uncountable, plural fellowships)

1. A company of people that share the same interest or aim.

   Coordinate terms: companionship, communing

2. (dated) Company, companions; a group of people or things following another.
3. A feeling of friendship, relatedness or connection between people.

   (2 Corinthians 13:14, English Standard Version)

4. (education) A merit-based scholarship.

   Coordinate term: traineeship
5. (education) A temporary position at an academic institution with limited teaching duties and ample time for research.

   Synonym: postdoc

6. (medicine) A period of supervised, sub-specialty medical training in the United States and Canada that a physician may undertake after completing a specialty training program or residency.

   Coordinate terms: residency, internship

7. (arithmetic, archaic) The proportional division of profit and loss among partners.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

fellowship (third-person singular simple present fellowships, present participle fellowshipping or (US also) fellowshiping, simple past and past participle fellowshipped or (US also) fellowshiped)

1. (transitive) To admit to fellowship, enter into fellowship with; to make feel welcome by showing friendship or building a cordial relationship. Now only in religious use.
   • c. 1524, Sidney John Hervon Herrtage (editor), The early English versions of the Gesta Romanorum, first edition (1879), anthology, published for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., translation of Gesta Romanorum by anon., xxxiv. 135, (Harl. MS. c.1440), page 135:

     Then pes seynge hir sistris alle in acorde...she turnid ayene; For whenne contencions & styf wer' cessid, then pes was felashipid among hem.

     Then Peace saw her sisters all in accord...she turned again; for when contentions and strife were ceased, then Peace was fellowshipped among them.

2. (intransitive, now chiefly religious, especially in Canada, US) To join in fellowship; to associate with.
   • c. 1410, Hans Kurath quoting Nicholas Love (translator), The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, fifth edition (1989), quoted in Middle English Dictionary, translation of Meditationes Vitae Christi by Pseudo-Bonaventura, (Gibbs MS. c.1400), page 463:

     Oure lorde Jesu came in manere of a pilgrym and felauschipped [Aldh felischippede] with hem.

     Our lord Jesus came in the manner of a pilgrim and fellowshipped with them.

Derived terms

• unfellowship