friend
noun
a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
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 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:
She reached out to her friend Lori Fusaro, a staff photographer for Best Friends Animal Society in Los Angeles, about adopting two cats.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2026
The friend group all get into the tiny car but Simon struggles to start the engine.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
Her friend pulled her up a hillside as the flood roared below.
From Barron's ● Sep. 6, 2026
And a pit bull named Malta is part of the reason that my friend Anna and her fiancé, Liam, have a car in Brooklyn, where they live.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026
Couldn’t she do this one thing by herself while her friend danced for the first time in the Osage dances?
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
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
Nike named David Denton as its new chief financial officer last week; he will succeed Matthew Friend and start on August 17.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 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
I realize I have no idea where my Last Friend actually lives, or where he’s from.
From "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera
Bond said that after his mother's death he was occupied with informing friends and family and organising the funeral - the house was "the last thing on my mind".
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
Even as the island has been seriously rattled by U.S. threats against its sovereignty, it has managed to use its uncomfortable moment in the spotlight to gain concessions from its friends.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026
The bereaved received rap demos that Elsesser’s brother and his friends had recorded.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2026
Another tourist, French painter Carol Odile, said she came with a group of friends, excited to see Komodo dragons in Flores, when she was notified that her flight was cancelled.
From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026
Then, about five minutes later, Arlo and some of his friends were running around and accidentally bumped the table.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
Just before Christmas 2022, someone purporting to be a San Diego woman named Viktoria Zara friended Kevin on Facebook.
From Salon ● Jun. 26, 2025
“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
"There's been many people that have been described as having hung around him, socialized with him, friended him. We have Prince Andrew, I mean, the heir to the throne of England."
From Fox News ● Nov. 22, 2019
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
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
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
There was very sharp work between Stanley and John Russell, who left off noble friending and took to noble lording him, to show that they were quite two.
From The Greville Memoirs A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III by Charles Greville
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.
