Rapport

noun

A trusting, empathetic, and intimate association or connection between people

Usage

In a lot of ways, we are defined by our relationships, whether they are friendships, romantic partnerships, or anything else, with other people. After all, it’s hard to really gauge your personality or character until it comes out through your interaction with others. In this respect, one of the best ways to discover your own nature is through your rapport with someone who truly understands you, and who you understand equally intimately in return.

A rapport is a bond or connection between people which is characterized by profound trust, empathy, and understanding. While one individual’s familiarity with another might only go one way, a rapport is a relationship which goes both directions. The closeness of a rapport between people might be immediate and natural, or nurtured and deepened over time, but once established, a significant link between them has been solidified. Most often, though, rapport must be nurtured and developed over time and founded on trust between the two parties, a process often described as building rapport or establishing rapport. And as with most bonds based on trust, there is no way to fake or shortcut one’s way to true rapport. When one indicates such a relationship, they often describe it as simply rapport, but it can also be distinguished (more specifically) as having good rapport. Conversely, it is also possible to denote a sour or tense relationship between people, as long as it is not overtly hostile, in which case the two participants have bad rapport.

Rapport certainly signifies that two people are well-acquainted, but it goes further and illustrates a dear friendship featuring an intuitive sense of mutual understanding, loyalty, and dependability. For instance, friends who have rapport might be able to guess what the other is thinking, or instinctively know when something is troubling their compatriot. Though it exists predominantly between people, rapport can be said to exist between a person and a thing, such as a fencing champion’s rapport with their saber. This would illustrate not that he or she knows its personality, but its exact feel in one’s palm or the balance point on the blade. Whatever form it may take, when one enjoys rapport, it makes for a relationship they can count on.

Example: The longtime doubles tennis partners had developed such a rapport that they managed to best all opponents with superior technique!

Example: She had such a rapport with her thesis adviser that she asked her for advice on academic and non-academic matters alike.

Example: The first goal of the newly hired CEO was to build a good rapport with her colleagues.

Origin

Originally, rapport comes from the Latin verb apportare, meaning “to bring” and composed of the prefix ad-, meaning “to,” and portare, meaning “to carry.” Apportare was adapted into French as apporter, also meaning “to bring,” and affixed with the prefix re-, which means “again,” to form rapporter, which means “to bring back” or “to reference.” The French rapport was derived from this latter verb to mean “accord,” “harmony,” or “association” before it was adopted by the English language, preserving the French pronunciation in which final consonants are silent, in the mid-17^th century to mean “relationship” or “association.”

Derivative Words

Rapportage: This noun describes the act or practice of communicating or relating usually mundane developments in interpersonal relationships, usually from firsthand experience.

Example: No one believed he had broken up with his fiancé until his closest friend gave a rapportage of the entire debacle.

Rapporteur: A rapporteur is a member of a group or policy body who is selected to take notes on and give accounts of their meetings, or to collect information on a subject and submit a report to that body.

Example: The United Nations sent a rapporteur to the conflict zone to investigate allegations of war crimes.

In Literature

From Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass:

My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination around the whole earth;
I have look’d for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all lands;
I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them.

Whitman whimsically muses that his efforts to become acquainted on a deeply personal level with others all over the world were emboldened by an intangible, almost spiritual connection, or rapport, with them.

Mnemonic

Two people with a rapport between them strongly support one another.