philia

1. 1.

   a positive feeling of liking

   “he had trouble expressing the affection he felt”

   “the child won everyone's heart”

   “the warmness of his welcome made us feel right at home”

   Synonymsaffectionaffectionatenessfondnesstendernessheartwarmnesswarmheartedness

   Broaderfeeling

   Narrowerattachmentprotectivenessregardsoft spot

Other forms of philia

plural

philias·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about philia

What does philia mean?

philia means "a positive feeling of liking".

How many syllables are in philia?

philia has 3 syllables: phi-li-a. The stress falls on "phi".

What is another word for philia?

Close synonyms include affection, affectionateness, fondness, tenderness, heart. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is philia a common word?

philia is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.