1. A person who shares one's interests or activities; a friend or companion.
2. often Comrade A fellow member of a group, especially a fellow member of the Communist Party.

[French camarade, from Old French, roommate, from Old Spanish camarada, barracks company, roommate, from camara, room, from Late Latin camera. See chamber.]

WORD HISTORY   A comrade can be socially or politically close, a closeness that is found at the etymological heart of the word comrade. In Spanish the Latin word camara, with its Late Latin meaning "chamber, room," was retained, and the derivative camarada, with the sense "roommates, especially barrack mates," was formed. Camarada then came to have the general sense "companion." English borrowed the word from Spanish and French, English comrade being first recorded in the 16th century. The political sense of comrade, now associated with Communism, had its origin in the late-19th-century use of the word as a title by socialists and communists in order to avoid such forms of address as mister. This usage, which originated during the French Revolution, is first recorded in English in 1884.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.