welcome
Forms
- Comparative
- welcomer
- Superlative
- welcomest
- Plural
- welcomes
Definitions
1.Whose arrival is a cause of joy; received with gladness; admitted willingly to the house, entertainment, or company.
- Refugees are welcome in our city!
- When the glad soul is made Heaven's welcome guest.
2.Producing gladness.
3.Followed by to: free to have or enjoy gratuitously.
- You are welcome to the use of my library.
1.Greeting given upon someone's arrival.
- Welcome to the life of Electra Heart!
1.The utterance of such a greeting.
2.Kind reception of a guest or newcomer.
- Truth finds an entrance and a welcome too.
- We entered the house and found a ready welcome.
3.The act of greeting someone’s arrival, especially by saying "Welcome!"; reception.
4.The state of being a welcome guest; a feeling of one's presence and comfort being desired.
- The townspeople crossed freely from bank to bank, and it stayed that way until breakup in March or April or, in years when winter outstayed its welcome, maybe even May.
Frequency
Overall
Common· #1363
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Common
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Etymology
From Middle English welcome, wolcume, wulcume, wilcume, from Old English wilcuma (“a wished-for guest”; compare also wilcume (“welcome!”, interjection)), from Proto-West Germanic *willjakwemō, from Proto-Germanic *wiljakwemô (“a wished-for arrival or guest”), possibly from *wiljakwemaną (“to be welcome”), equivalent to will (“desire”) + come (“comer, arrival”). The component wil- was replaced by wel- when the sense “guest” of the second component was no longer understood, likely under influence from the adverb well.