feindlîch

Feindlîch is a historical German adjective from Old High German, meaning essentially "hostile" or "inimical," literally "enemy-like." It is built from feind "enemy" plus the suffix -lîh, a common OHG adjectival ending, with î indicating a long vowel. The form is the ancestor of the modern German feindlich; in Middle and Modern German the spelling shifts to feindlich, but feindlîch appears in scholarly editions to reproduce the original orthography.

The sense of feindlîch covers hostility in relations between persons or groups, hostile intentions, or actions described as hostile. In texts it can modify nouns or be used predicatively, conveying moral or legal disapproval of hostile conduct. In translation, it corresponds to English "hostile" or "inimical." In contemporary German, the usual equivalents are feindlich or feindselig; feindlîch is primarily found in historical linguistics, philology, or translations of Old High German sources.

Related terms include Feind (enemy) and feindlich, the latter being the modern reflex. The word illustrates the historical development of the adjective suffix -lich into the modern -lich, and the OHG form with î reflects long-vowel spelling conventions characteristic of the period.