Noun

(en noun)

(dated) playmate; companion for someone (especially children) to play with.

* 1922 , (Margery Williams), (The Velveteen Rabbit)

"I’ve brought you a new playfellow ," the Fairy said. "You must be very kind to him and teach him all he needs to know in Rabbitland, for he is going to live with you for ever and ever!"

* 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 5

Now she was within ten feet of the two unsuspecting little playfellows --carefully she drew her hind feet well up beneath her body, the great muscles rolling under the beautiful skin.

Noun

(en noun)

One with whom one shares a bed.

* 1599 Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew , .

''Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,

''Whither away, or where is thy abode?

''Happy the parents of so fair a child;

''Happier the man whom favourable stars

Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow .

An associate, often an otherwise improbable one.

* 1873' ''They say that "misfortune makes men acquainted with strange '''bedfellows ". The old hereditary Whig Cabinet ministers must, no doubt, by this time have learned to feel themselves at home with strange neighbours at their elbows.'' — Anthony Trollope, ''Phineas Redux , Chapter 40.

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=February 12 , author=Les Roopanarine , title=Birmingham 1 - 0 Stoke , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Statistics and truth can be uneasy bedfellows when it comes to football, but one fact could not be ignored: neither side has a player with more than seven goals to his name.}}