† comradon.

Etymology: < Spanish camarada (also camarado , Minsheu 1599), ‘comerade, bedfellow, chamber-fellow’, originally ‘camerado souldiour’, ‘cabbin-mate souldier’, < camarada (= Italian and Latin type camerata , French chambrée ) a chambered or cabined (company), ‘a chamberfull, a company that belongs to one chamber, tent, or cabin’; < Spanish camara chamber, room < Latin camera : see camera n. and -ado suffix. The Spanish word was a collective feminine, of the same type as ambuscade , cavalcade , which, like company n. 6, was at length applied to a single person who is one's ‘company’ or chamber-mate; in which sense also it was sometimes altered into the masculine form camarado . (In the original collective sense camarada n. was also used in English.) The Spanish word was adapted in French as camarade , -erade feminine in the collective sense (Cotgrave), whence camarade masculine the individual; hence English camerade and, in part, comrade n. The o in the English comorado, comrado, comrade, was probably intended for the Spanish a, which was opener than the English.