genial1
/ˈdʒiːnɪəl
/- Food sources aside, the meal was a lot of fun, not least because of the genial company and the friendly service.
- The husband was a tall and genial fellow, friendly, youthful and easy-going.
- Every holiday I have, I come back to Shanghai, I find life here is so much easier, the people are so genial and friendly.
Synonyms
- The sun shone with a genial warmth that added very materially to the enjoyment of the huge crowd.
Derivatives
genially
/ adverb ...- As a journal profoundly identified with Hamilton's city, we have always taken a genially cosmopolitan view of people pursuing their own happiness in their own way.
- Our guide genially points out details while indicating that there is far more here than he can convey to visitors - that some mysteries have to remain unexplained.
- Between the tunes he chatted to the audience like friends, as well as genially encouraging those with instruments to come up and play with the band.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from Latin genialis 'nuptial, productive', from genius (see genius). The Latin sense was adopted into English; hence the senses 'mild and conducive to growth' (mid 17th century), later 'cheerful, kindly' (mid 18th century).
gender from Late Middle English:
The words gender and engender (Middle English) go back via Old French to Latin genus ‘birth, family, nation’, a word that was reborrowed in the early 17th century for scientific classification, although it had been in use 50 years earlier in logic. In modern French the ‘d’ was lost to produce genre, a word reborrowed in the early 19th century. Generation (Middle English), generate (early 16th century), engender (Middle English), generosity (Late Middle English), genial (mid 16th century), and degenerate (Late Middle English) are all from the same source.
Rhymes
genial2
/dʒɪˈniːəl/Origin
Mid 19th century: from Greek geneion 'chin' (from genus 'jaw') + -al.