Word of the Week
Amicable (AM-ih-kuh-buhl) — adj. characterized by friendliness; without serious disagreement or rancor. They reached an amicable settlement over the disputed property line.
From the Latin amicus, meaning “friend.” To be amicable is to behave as a friend would.
The root am—to love, to befriend—runs farther through English than most writers realize. Once you start hearing it, you’ll catch it in surprising places:
Amity—friendship between nations or people
Amour—love (usually romantic)
Amateur—literally, one who loves (someone who does a thing for love rather than money)
Paramour—a lover, often illicit
Enamor—to inflame with love
Enemy—from in-amicus, the not-friend
Enmity—the state of being not-friends
There’s something useful in noticing that enemy and amateur share a root. The thing we love and the thing we hate are both defined by the same word—by whether love is present or absent. For the writer, amicable belongs in the working vocabulary. We use it to describe relationships that aren’t romantic, aren’t familial, but still bound by genuine warmth. Which is to say, we use it to describe friendship.
Their amicable silences had become, over the years, the truest measure of their bond—they could sit together for an hour without speaking and still feel that something important had been said.
Q&A
Question: Can two friend-characters really carry a novel? Every story I read seems to need a romance to keep the reader invested. Can a friendship hold the same emotional weight?
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