companion
A companion today is one you keep company with — the friend who travels beside you, the steady presence, the spouse named on the form. The word has worn down to mean simply the one who accompanies. Its Latin bones are more specific. Companio is com- ("with") plus panis ("bread"): a bread-fellow, the one you share a loaf with. The compound was coined in Late Latin, almost certainly as a loan-translation of a Germanic word built the same way — Gothic gahlaiba, "with-loaf," a messmate — and it first surfaces in the Frankish law code, the Lex Salica. A companion, at the root, is not defined by the shared road or the shared name but by the shared meal. The bond is bread, divided.
A companion is one you share bread with. The word is Latin com-, "with," plus panis, "bread" — companio, a bread-fellow, the person at your table, the one you break the loaf with. Set it beside the other relation-words English has collected and the picture sharpens. A partner is one who shares a division — the bond named by the partition. A covenant is a coming-together — the bond named by the motion toward. A companion is named by neither the split nor the approach but by the meal: the bond is the bread, and the bread is shared. It is the warmest of the three, because it locates the relation in the most ordinary and bodily act two people can do together — eat.
The Latin did not invent the metaphor. Companio is almost certainly a calque — a loan-translation — of a Germanic word built on exactly the same plan: Gothic gahlaiba, "with-loaf," a messmate, the one you share a hlaib with. The word first turns up in the Lex Salica, the law code of the Franks, which is the kind of place a Germanic idea wearing Latin clothes would surface. And here is the quiet doubling: the Germanic "loaf" half, *hlaibaz, is the ancestor of the English word loaf — not of panis. So the bread in companion and the bread in loaf are different breads, from different roots, and the metaphor of sharing-bread reached English twice, by two routes, and only one of them is the word we now use.
The bread keeps a household around it. Company is the same compound — the gathering of bread-sharers. Accompany is built on the same stem. And the bread itself, the panis, threw off the furniture of the kitchen: the pantry is the bread-room (Old French paneterie); the pannier is the bread-basket (Latin panarium). These are cousins of the loaf-half, not of the with-half — a slightly looser kin than company, but real. Even the deep root is honest about its uncertainty: panis is usually traced to a PIE root meaning "to feed" or "to shepherd, protect" — the same root, if the attribution holds, as pastor and pasture — but de Vaan flags it "of uncertain origin." The bread may go all the way down to the shepherd. It may not. The word is sure only of the table.
The false friends are the other words for the same bond, each built on a root that has nothing to do with bread. Comrade looks like a sibling — it even seems to start with com- — but it is "chamber-mate," from Latin camera, a vaulted room; the com- you see is just the first syllable of camarada, not the preposition. A comrade is one you share a room with. A fellow is a Norse business word: Old Norse félagi, from fé ("cattle, money") and lag ("a laying-down") — one who lays down money with you in a joint venture. A fellow is one you share a stake with. Three words for the same closeness — companion, comrade, fellow — and three unrelated roots underneath: the bread, the room, the money. English kept all three, and forgot which was which, and now they mean nearly the same thing. But the oldest of the pictures is the simplest. Before the shared room and the shared stake, there was the shared loaf.
- company — the same compound, com- + panis; Old French compaignie, "the gathering of those who share bread." The closest true cousin — a companion is a member of a company
- accompany — Old French acompaignier, "to associate with," on the same compaign- stem; to go with someone is, at the root, to be their bread-fellow
- pantry — Old French paneterie, "bread-room," from Latin panis; the room where the bread was kept. A cousin of the loaf-half, not the with-half
- pannier — Latin panarium, "a bread-basket," from panis; the basket slung on a beast or a bicycle, named for the bread it once carried
- pastor / pasture — from *peh₂-, "to feed, shepherd, protect" — the (uncertain) deep root of panis; the shepherd and the grazing-ground, if the attribution holds, are the far cousins of the loaf
- gahlaiba (Gothic) — the model the Latin word translated, not a bread-cousin — "with-loaf," from hlaib, "loaf." Its loaf-half is the true ancestor of English loaf, on a different root from panis; included only to show the calque
- comrade — different root — from Latin camera, "a vaulted room, chamber" (via Spanish camarada, "chamber-mate"). The com- is just the first syllable of camera, not the preposition com-. The classic elegant false friend: a room-mate, not a bread-mate
- fellow — different root — Old Norse félagi, from fé ("cattle, money") + lag ("a laying-down, partnership"). A Norse business word: one who lays down money with another. Same meaning as companion, no bread
- panic — different root — Greek panikos, from the god Pan; nothing to do with Latin panis. The pan- lookalike trap (compare pane of glass, from Latin pannus, "cloth" — also not bread)
- companionway (nautical) — different word — the ship's stair/hatch, from Dutch kompanje, "quarterdeck, provision room"; sound-conflated with the personal companion, but a separate borrowing