fellowship

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”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɛləʃɪp/, /ˈfɛləʊʃɪp/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɛləʃɪp/, /ˈfɛloʊʃɪp/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fel‧low‧ship

fellowship (countable and uncountable, plural fellowships)

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

   Coordinate terms: companionship, communing

   The Fellowship of the Ring

2. (dated) Company, companions; a group of people or things following another.
   • c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]:

     […] But then the mind much ſufferance doth or'e ſcip,
     When griefe hath mates,and bearing fellowſhip :
     How light and portable my paine ſeemes now,
     When that which makes me bend, makes the King bow,
     He childed as I fathered,Tom away,
     Marke the high noyſes and thy ſelfe bewray, […]

3. A feeling of friendship, relatedness or connection between people.

   The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

   (2 Corinthians 13:14, English Standard Version)

4. (education) A merit-based scholarship.

   Coordinate term: traineeship

   • 2021 May 18, Catie Edmondson, quoting Debbie Altenburg, “Senate Weighs Investing $120 Billion in Science to Counter China”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     There is a significant investment in scholarships and fellowships and traineeships, so that we are also making sure that we’re investing in domestic work force.

   • 2021 May 20, Hilarie M. Sheets, “A Utopian Art School in Michigan Looks Back and Ahead”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     It will go toward 20 full-tuition fellowships for students of color, as well as to endow the initiative in perpetuity, provide relief for the existing scholarship fund and bring in artists of color as visiting faculty over the next five years.

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.

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.

   The Bishop's family fellowshipped the new converts.

   The Society of Religious Snobs refused to fellowship the poor family.

   • 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.

   The megachurch he attends is too big for making personal connections, so he also fellowships weekly in one of the church's small groups.

   After she got married, she stopped fellowshipping with the singles in our church.

   • 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.

• unfellowship