friend
noun
a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
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friend
American
[frend]
/ frɛnd /
noun
-
friends
plural
-
a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
-
a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter
friends of the Boston Symphony.
-
a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile.
Who goes there? Friend or foe?
-
a member of the same nation, party, etc.
- Synonyms:
- compatriot, confrere, associate, ally
-
Friend, a member of the Society of Friends; a Quaker.
The religious practices of Friends are founded in direct communion with God.
-
a person associated with another as a contact on a social media website.
We've never met, but we're Facebook friends.
verb (used with object)
-
friends,
present (3rd person singular)
-
friended,
past participle, past
-
friending
present participle
-
Rare. to befriend.
-
to add (a person) to one's list of contacts on a social media website.
I just friended a couple of guys in my class.
idioms
friend
1
British
/ frɛnd /
noun
-
a person known well to another and regarded with liking, affection, and loyalty; an intimate
-
an acquaintance or associate
-
an ally in a fight or cause; supporter
-
a fellow member of a party, society, etc
-
a patron or supporter
a friend of the opera
-
to be friendly (with)
-
to become friendly (with)
verb
Friend
2
British
/ frɛnd /
noun
Friend
3
British
/ frɛnd /
noun
friend
More Idioms
Usage
Spelling tips for friend The word friend is hard to spell for two reasons. First, it sounds like [ frend ], making it easy to miss the i. Second, even if you know there is an i, it can be difficult to remember the order of the i and the e. How to spell friend: To remember that friend has an i in it, think of the phrase "I see my friends on Friday." Both friend and Friday begin fri-. If you remember that friend has an i in it, but just can't remember where it goes, keep in mind the classic mnemonic device "I before E, except after C."
Synonym Usage
See acquaintance.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
friendsimple
-
friendssimple
-
have friendedperfect
-
has friendedperfect
-
am friendingprogressive
-
are friendingprogressive
-
is friendingprogressive
-
have been friendingperfect progressive
-
has been friendingperfect progressive
Past
-
friendedsimple
-
had friendedperfect
-
was friendingprogressive
-
were friendingprogressive
-
had been friendingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of friend
First recorded before 900; Middle English friend, frend, Old English frēond “friend, lover, relative” (cognate with Old Saxon friund, Old High German friunt ( German Freund ), Gothic frijōnds ), originally the present participle of frēogan, cognate with Gothic frijōn “to love”
Explanation
A friend is your buddy, your pal, your amigo, your comrade. You know, someone you trust and like enough to hang out with on a regular basis. The noun friend comes to us from the Old English word freond. Back then you had to be careful to not confuse freond with feond, which meant “fiend or enemy.” These days it's pretty tough to get mixed up though. Friends are the people you can count on, the ones that make you laugh and throw you birthday parties. Enemies are generally the mean ones.
Vocabulary lists containing friend
Spelling Practice, Unit 2
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Spelling Practice, Unit 3
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Spelling Practice 1, Unit 4
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Someone who joined us in sharing our heartbreak on social media when Kobe Bryant died in 2020, calling him “a friend and a fan of ours, full of life and taken from us too soon.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
"Hello darkness my old friend" says Metro, showing the Moon slowly blotting out the Sun as seen in the skies above south London, where a 97% eclipse was witnessed.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
"I want to congratulate my good friend Bob Iger and Josh Kushner on their purchase of the Los Angeles Lakers!"
From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026
On Sunday Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, asked about the bonkers statements young radical candidates made a few years ago that damage their electability today, laughed it off by quoting a friend: “Woke 1 was crazy.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
Conservation of angular momentum is your best friend.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
If spotting a rare creature in the wild wasn't challenging enough, the numbat is a squirrel-sized camouflage connoisseur, explains Dr Tony Friend, the godfather of conservation in the state of Western Australia.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
As Sara emerges as the ever-dwindling group’s heroine, Max goes from being the bossy but loveable Alpha Friend to She Who Must Be Obeyed, even as she makes the worst decisions possible.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
Matthew Friend, the current CFO, will leave that role but stay with the company through Sept. 4 to help with the transition.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026
Other apps, including Focus Friend and Forest, gamify and reward putting down the phone.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
It’s hard to have a respectful conversation, let alone make a Last Friend.
From "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera
She thanks relatives and friends living in the U.S. for the support without which she couldn’t make it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Mary Herron, 21, who is leaving a boutique cupcake shop with two friends, has noticed a difference in attitudes amongst her contemporaries.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
He was joined by “Aqua Dazzle” owner Rex Danyluk and friends as they designed an immersive, imaginative experience without a haunted house, a maze or jump scares.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
“I went in with some friends on a summer share in Cape Cod. It was what my friends were doing, and that was enough for me,” he writes.
From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2026
Sela and I weren’t enemies, but we weren’t exactly friends.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Just before Christmas 2022, someone purporting to be a San Diego woman named Viktoria Zara friended Kevin on Facebook.
From Salon ● Jun. 26, 2025
About four years ago, I casually friended a man on social media.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 4, 2022
“Facebook would always tell me, oh, you should be friends with Steve Badger, but I never friended him because I thought he was so mad at me about our awkward breakup,” Calkins said.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 4, 2021
Six years later, in July 2007, with camp and about two dozen mutual friends in common, she friended him on Facebook before they each headed off to college.
From New York Times ● Feb. 5, 2021
Since Tea Cake and Janie had friended with the Bahaman workers in the ’Glades, they, the “Saws,” had been gradually drawn into the American crowd.
From "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
Imagine people friending you six months before an election and they're talking to you.
From Salon ● Feb. 27, 2025
“We often have free stuff,” Lu said in Mandarin to two men who crossed the border in January, after friending them on WeChat at the vegetable giveaway.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2023
For months, many of them have been posting comments and photos, friending each other and following fake Trump accounts.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 22, 2022
Why the Cool Kids Are Playing Dungeons & Dragons Annalee Newitz traded Facebook for D&D: What drove me away from Facebook wasn’t just the fake friending.
From The Verge ● Apr. 9, 2019
But all the time I knew perfectly well that the great show of honor and "friending" was not for me alone.
From The Story of My Life Recollections and Reflections by Ellen Terry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
