mutual Meaning, Definition & Usage
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adjective satellite common to or shared by two or more parties
common.
- a common friend
- the mutual interests of management and labor
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adjective concerning each of two or more persons or things; especially given or done in return
reciprocal.
- reciprocal aid
- reciprocal trade
- mutual respect
- reciprocal privileges at other clubs
WordNet
Mu"tu*al adjective
Etymology
F.Definitions
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Reciprocally acting or related; reciprocally receiving and giving; reciprocally given and received; reciprocal; interchanged; as, a mutual love, advantage, assistance, aversion, etc.Conspiracy and mutual promise. Sir T. More.
Happy in our mutual help, And mutual love. Milton.
A certain shyness on such subjects, which was mutual between the sisters. G. Eliot.
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Possessed, experienced, or done by two or more persons or things at the same time; common; joint; Burke.as, mutual happiness; amutual effort.A vast accession of misery and woe from the mutual weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Bentley.
✍ This use of mutual as synonymous with common is inconsistent with the idea of interchange, or reciprocal relation, which properly belongs to it; but the word has been so used by many writers of high authority. The present tendency is toward a careful discrimination. Mutual, as Johnson will tell us, means something reciprocal, a giving and taking. How could people have mutual ancestors? P. Harrison.
Syn. -- Reciprocal; interchanged; common.