palsy-walsy
/ˌpalzɪˈwalzi
/adjective informal
Very friendly or intimate: the president’s apparent reluctance to become palsy-walsy with the press...
- The headlines may suggest that Democratic and Republican lawmakers hate each other, but when it comes to consigning the lives of ordinary people to oblivion, everyone on the Hill is all warm and fuzzy and palsy-walsy.
- The writer gives an astute assessment of a country run for the few at the expense of the many. Run by the Palsy-Walsy brigade.
- Ginger gets on with everyone so he and Doughnut are very palsy walsy!
Origin
1930s (as a noun in the sense 'friend'): from the noun pal + -sy, by reduplication.