Friend (noun) — a person you know well, trust, and feel affection for. Friend (verb) — to add someone as a contact on a social media platform. Example: She made friends with native English speakers to practise conversation.
What Does Friend Mean?
Friend comes from Old English freond, meaning "one who loves", related to the Proto-Germanic root frijonan ("to love, treat with affection"). The same root gives us the German Freund and Dutch vriend. In Old English, the word carried strong connotations of loyalty and kinship — to call someone a friend was to declare genuine emotional attachment, not mere acquaintance.
In modern British English, friend is primarily used as a noun to describe a person with whom you have a close, affectionate, and trusting relationship built through shared experience. It sits above acquaintance (someone you merely know) and below or alongside best friend or close friend (your most trusted companions). The word also appears in formal and archaic registers: Quakers historically addressed anyone as "Friend", and diplomats sometimes use "our friends in [country]" as a neutral term.
As a verb, friend is a relatively recent addition to the language, popularised by social media platforms in the 2000s. "Did you friend her yet?" is now widely understood, though the verb form is still considered informal and restricted to digital contexts.
Example Sentences
| Sentence | Level & usage note |
|---|---|
| My best friend lives next door to me. | A2 — basic possessive + noun |
| She made friends with native English speakers to practise conversation. | B1 — collocation: make friends with |
| He has been a close friend of the family for over twenty years. | B1 — present perfect; close friend collocation |
| Despite their differences, the two rivals eventually became firm friends after working together on the project. | B2 — contrast clause; firm friends collocation |
| The ambassador stressed that fostering genuine friendships between nations requires sustained cultural exchange, not merely diplomatic protocol. | C1 — formal register; derived noun friendship |
Collocations
| Collocation | Example |
|---|---|
| best friend | She is my best friend — we have known each other since primary school. |
| close friend | Only a close friend would tell you the truth in that situation. |
| old friend | I bumped into an old friend from university on the train. |
| make friends (with) | It can be hard to make friends when you move to a new city. |
| mutual friend | We were introduced through a mutual friend at a dinner party. |
| firm friend | They became firm friends after spending a month travelling together. |
| lifelong friend | My grandfather's lifelong friend gave a touching speech at the funeral. |
| good friend | He is a good friend — always there when you need him. |
| friend of a friend | I got the job through a friend of a friend who worked at the company. |
| circle of friends | Moving abroad meant building an entirely new circle of friends. |
Usage Notes
Key Points for ESL Learners
Noun patterns: Friend typically follows possessives (my friend, her friend) or articles with modifiers (a close friend, the best friend). Use "make friends" (not "do friends" or "get friends") to describe forming new friendships: It is easy to make friends at university.
Prepositions: Say friends with someone — never friends of someone in this sense. "I am friends with Tom" is correct. "I am friend with Tom" (missing the plural) is a very common ESL error.
Verb use: "To friend someone" and "to unfriend someone" are acceptable in informal digital contexts only. Do not use friend as a verb in formal writing or speech outside social media topics.
Register: The word is neutral in register and appropriate in all contexts from casual conversation to formal writing. For a more formal alternative, colleague, associate, or companion may be preferred depending on the relationship.
Common Mistakes
Watch Out For
I am friend with Maria since three years.
I have been friends with Maria for three years. (plural friends; present perfect; for + period)
She is very friendly with me — she is my friend since school.
She has been my friend since school. (present perfect for a situation that started in the past and continues now)
He did friends with the new classmates quickly.
He made friends with the new classmates quickly. (fixed collocation: make friends)