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.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I’d probably meet up with a friend and go to the Silverlake Flea Market, which I’ve been really liking recently.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
When the friend arrived to Katherine’s home, she found a note on her bedroom door, which was locked.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
It may seem like a weird career shift for Witkoff, but he’s such an outlier that the famously transactional Donald Trump treats him like an actual friend.
From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2026
"I went from having really not a lot of positivity in my life at the time, to finding out that my best friend was my sister," Green added.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
“Our friend Hannah right here is selling these beautiful beaded key chains to raise money for Elders back on our rez.”
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
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
This command to wipe out the files as fast as possible nuked “Toy Story 2” in the time it takes to play “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
In Leung's latest film, "Silent Friend" -- his first outing in a fully European production -- a ginkgo tree plays a central role.
From Barron's ● Jun. 19, 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 enter the app store and I download Last Friend.
From "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera
Following the publishing of Chey’s letter, Roh had told friends she would defend her household, keep the family together and resist granting a divorce.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
“Importantly, these types of partnerships are created on the premise of connection as friends, not romance,” the firm notes.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
The upshot was that instead of a more community-minded gathering of citizens casting ballots for friends and neighbors, delegates were simply voted into the state convention based on whom they would support for the Senate.
From Slate ● 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
But my rez friends were the kids I went to school with and maybe a few of their cousins who liked Star Wars or comics.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
“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
“Facebook was new and sparkly and you friended everyone,” said Ms. Schloss, who graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan.
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
"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
“I’ve seen it. You friended me. And JP’s got one too.”
From "Winger" by Andrew Smith
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
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
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
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.
