Word family noun friend friendliness friendship friendly adjective friendly ≠ unfriendly friendless verb befriend
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbefriendbe‧friend /bɪˈfrend/ verb [transitive] FRIENDLYto behave in a friendly way towards someone, especially someone who is younger or needs help They befriended me when I first arrived in London as a student.→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
befriend• In a park in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one summer afternoon I befriend a little old retired Latin teacher.• The bookmaker told Kalra he had befriended Cronje and was planning to fix the matches scheduled to be held in March.• It's fairly unusual for high school seniors to befriend freshmen.• Some dignitaries did befriend her, usually to get her away from their own localities.• He had learned that it was not to befriend his subordinates, nor to compete with or dominate them.• A group of soldiers befriended my brothers and me during the war.• His parents befriended some American soldiers who served in Wales during World War II.• Joan herself was a widow, and as an ex-nurse she befriended Stanley and began to care for him.• He ruled with justice and mercy, befriending the Moors rather than seeking to overpower them with his presence.• Its sponsor, a local arts patron named Clara Bates, befriended the teenager and installed him in her carriage house.• Bosses were not always eager to befriend trainees. 