Amiable vs Amicable
Amiable and Amicable come from the Latin root word “amicus,” meaning friend. Both evolved to have meanings related to friendliness. Both are adjectives. The main difference is what they each describe. Amiable describes an individual person as being friendly, good-natured, and pleasant. It can also refer to qualities of that person, such as their demeanor or their voice. Amicable, on the other hand, describes friendly and peaceable relationships or interactions between people, especially an interaction that isn’t usually friendly or peaceable.
Here are some definitions and examples to help make the use of these words clearer.
Amiable (adjective)
[Referring to a person] Friendly, good-natured, and pleasant.
Examples:
The cashier at the grocery store is always amiable to the customers.
The elementary school teacher speaks to her students in an amiable voice.
You can see in each sentence that the adjective amiable refers to either a person or a quality of a person. The cashier in the first sentence is friendly and good-natured to the customers. The elementary school teacher has a pleasant and good-natured voice. Amiable refers to one person or one person’s quality.
Amicable (adjective)
[Referring to interactions between people] Friendly and peaceable
Examples:
The neighbors reached an amicable solution to the dispute over their fence.
The couple went to a mediator to ensure they would have an amicable breakup.
In both examples above, the situations are ones where people usually argue and fight. If you and your neighbor have a dispute about the fence between your houses, it’s not usually a peaceful dispute. The adjective amicable describes the interaction that, surprisingly, was peaceable. In the second example, a couple is breaking up. You wouldn’t normally think of breaking up as being a friendly interaction. The adjective amicable indicates that they did manage to keep the peace.
Main Points
- Although Amiable and Amicable come from the same Latin root word for friend, they have evolved to describe different things.
- Amiable refers to one person or quality of one person. The focus is on the individual.
- Amicablerefers to the interactions between people. In order to describe an interaction, there needs to be more than one person involved.
- Think of the C in Amicable as “Couple” or “Crowd,” to help you remember that it describes interactions between more than one person.