Meanings
- literaryrareA male given name from Latin.
She was an admirer of Kingsley. That's why she called her son Amyas. His father scoffed at the name - but he gave in.
1942, Agatha Christie, Five Little Pigs, HarperCollins, published 1994, →ISBN, page 392 more examples
The morrow next about the wanted howre, / The Dwarfe cald at the doore of Amyas, / To come forthwith unto his Ladies bowre.
1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 59Because there was fellow-feeling of old in merry England, in county and in town; and these are Devon men, and men of Bideford, whose names are Amyas Leigh of Burrough, John Staveley, Michael Heard, and Jonas Marshall of Bideford, and Thomas Braund of Clovelly: and they, the first of all English mariners, have sailed round the world with Francis Drake, and are come hither to give God thanks.
1855, Charles Kingsley, Westward Ho!, Macmillan and Co., published 1871, page 17
Origin
- Latinamīcus“friend”
- Old FrenchAmis
- EnglishAmyas
From Old French Amis, a given name and nickname, from Latin amīcus (“friend”). Later interpreted as a masculine form of Amy.
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Cite this entry
Amyas. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Amyas
“Amyas.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Amyas. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Amyas,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Amyas.
Source: Amyas on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.