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.
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.
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.
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)
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."
See acquaintance.
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”
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.
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Find a cousin, a sister, a brother, a friend, someone you trust with good taste to help you.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
The Prince of Wales described Tyler as a "proud Welsh icon" and Sir Cliff Richard said he was mourning "another wonderful friend gone too soon".
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
He told me he’d come for his friend.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2026
Looking back on his early years, Damon recalled traveling to New York with his childhood friend and fellow actor, Ben Affleck, in hopes of landing acting jobs.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
‘Who knows? But maybe -it was another kind of test? Not whether you could find the third piece of the Nanuak. But whether you could risk it for a friend.’
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
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
David Denton, currently CFO at Pfizer, is set to take on the top finance role at Nike on Aug. 17, succeeding Matthew Friend.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
Denton succeeds Matthew Friend, who will stay on through Sept. 4 “to support an orderly transition,” Nike said.
From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026
Prior to that, the first song he ever recorded was Elvis Presley's The Girl of My Best Friend.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
"Oh, I've read about this guy. Friend, that is the legendary red panda," Max declares with her hands on her hips.
From "The Sky at Our Feet" by Nadia Hashimi
Later that night, the suspect, who was visiting Santa Monica with family, went alone to the pier, where he met up with a group of friends, according to police.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
Over the next two years they became firm friends, texting and phoning each other when they were not at work.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
Maybe the way to improve the off-site is to re-enact the playful things we did at an age when making friends seemed easier.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
“When you’ve got five kids, and usually a houseful of friends hanging out, flexibility is imperative.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
If the cottonmouths hadn’t been enraged before, they were now, determined to destroy the possessed branch that had just bludgeoned three of their friends.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
“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
Recently my friend's father "friended" me on Facebook.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 9, 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
Ford Fischer, an independent journalist and prolific Wohl watcher whose video was linked in the above Instagram post, told me that Garcia-Andrews had friended him last October on Facebook.
From Salon ● Jun. 4, 2020
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
In Slatten’s case, Singh had been catfishing her via a fake Facebook profile, friending her in 2013, but he ultimately came clean about his identity.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2026
Imagine people friending you six months before an election and they're talking to you.
From Salon ● Feb. 27, 2025
But even if you could somehow equalize those things, the researchers suggest that would close only about half the gap, because of friending bias — the propensity of people to mostly befriend others like them.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 7, 2022
The News Feed, which dropped the “News” from its name earlier this year, pioneered a social feed that learns from explicit cues you give it, such as friending someone or following a page.
From The Verge ● Jun. 15, 2022
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 Terry, Ellen
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.
