 The early twentieth-century English novelist W. Somerset Maugham frequently used the term in his novels and short stories, in particular when he describes male characters of a genial, sociable, and hard-drinking temperament (e.g., "Of Human Bondage", "The Trembling of a Leaf", and "Then and Now").In modern English, the idiom is defined as "heartily friendly and congenial, comradely, hail-fellow—characteristic of or befitting a friend; 'friendly advice'; 'a friendly neighborhood'; 'the only friendly person here'; 'a friendly host and hostess'.