mateshipn.

1593 T. Nashe Christs Teares 30 Empery admitteth no mateshyppe.

1633 W. Lithgow Scotlands Welcome sig. E4 The Minion, who pretends A Sou'raigne Mateship for his trechrous ends.

1849 Argus (Melbourne) 2 Mar. In their daily avocations, they will find but a sorry and a cheerless mateship in a white slave, depressed by a sense of his condition, or hardened by the consciousness of crime.

1856 E. B. Browning Aurora Leigh vii. 313 I sate among them equally, In fellowship and mateship.

1897 ‘P. Warung’ Tales Old Regime 215 It was pleasant, as it was unusual, this mateship.

1905 H. Lawson in B. Stevens Bush Ballads (1910) 76 The College Wreck..Tramps West in mateship with the man Who cannot write his name.

1930 W. K. Hancock Australia x. 199 Thwarted individualism found consolation in the gospel of mateship.

1984 People Mag. (Sydney) 7 May 40/1 Shearing to me is the mates I've made... There's no greater mateship in any industry in Australia.

1999 Daily Tel. 24 Mar. 15/1 The proposed new preamble to Australia's constitution honours God, indigenous culture and ‘mateship’.

1927 F. Alverdes Social Life in Animal World v. 47 Permanent mateships within a larger unit are of special interest since human marriages must be classified under this heading.

1972 T. McHugh Time of Buffalo xvii. 193 A single bull with a single cow is the rule, a union zoologists refer to as ‘temporary monogamous mateship’.

1977 D. Morris Manwatching 283 Even after establishing a mateship such individuals may continue to play the human beauty-game, when assessing film stars, pin-ups, or passers-by in the street.

1990 Ethol. & Sociobiol. 11 166 The negative effect of rape on mateships, especially marriages, will be a proximate cause of psychological pain in victims.