friend

Forms

1.A person, typically someone other than a family member, spouse or lover, whose company one enjoys and towards whom one feels affection.
- I used to find it hard to make friends when I was shy.
- We became friends in the war and remain friends to this day.
- John and I have been friends ever since we were roommates at college.
2.An associate who provides assistance; patron, mentor.
- When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my little pocket with halfpence.
- The Automobile Association is every motorist's friend. The police is every law-abiding citizen's friend.
3.A person with whom one is vaguely or indirectly acquainted.
- I added him as a friend on Facebook, but I hardly know him.
4.A person who backs or supports something.
- I’m not a friend of cheap wine.

1.To add (a person) to a list of friends on a social networking site; to officially designate (someone) as a friend.
- The two distributions which exhibited this property were in response to the statements, “I am careful about who I friend,” and, “If someone friends me, I will friend them.” (Figure 3).
- One of the most used features of MySpace is the practice that is nicknamed "friending." If you "friend" someone, then that person is added to your MySpace friends list, and you are added to their friends list.
- I use Native, that’s what other Native people on Facebook use. I have 660 friends. Tons of Native friends in my feed. Most of my friends, though, are people I don’t know, who’d happily friended me upon request.

Very common· #230

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *preyH-

Proto-Indo-European *-ós

Proto-Indo-European *priHós

Proto-Germanic *frijōną

Proto-Germanic *frijōndz

Proto-West Germanic *friund

Old English frēond

Middle English frend

English friend