Guildmate

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who belongs to the same guild or association as another member, sharing its membership and common aims
2. Someone enrolled in the same trade organization, craft society or fraternity as you are, bound by its rules and customs
3. A co-member of a guild, a fellow participant in the same professional or social brotherhood with shared standing

Etymology: "Guildmate" is a plain compound: "guild" joined to "-mate," a suffix meaning a companion or sharer. The "-mate" element comes from Middle English "mate," a word for a fellow or companion, which entered English as a term for a shipmate or messmate before spreading to other kinds of companionship. Attaching it to "guild" yields a term for someone who belongs to the same guild as you, the same way "classmate" or "roommate" describe people who share a class or a room. "Guild" is the older half of the pair. It came into English from Old Norse "gildi," meaning a payment or a feast, and the sense of a brotherhood of members who paid into a common fund and shared a feast developed from there. Medieval guilds were associations of craftsmen and merchants, and their members looked after one another, so "guildmate" carries that older idea of shared obligation into everyday use.

Synonyms: fellow guild member