Sense file
How the sense moved
The archive follows the dated record first, then reads the social or rhetorical pressure that hardened, softened, narrowed, or reversed the word.
Older meaning
A bread-fellow or messmate.
Modern meaning
A person who accompanies, associates, or spends time with another.
Research lens
A social word with a food fossil inside it, useful for showing how intimacy often begins as shared necessity.
Meaning trail
Root
with bread
Shared food anchored the relationship.
Older sense
messmate or fellow
Company was practical before it was sentimental.
Now
associate or friend
The bread disappeared, but closeness remained.