BEFRIEND

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does befriend mean? 

• BEFRIEND (verb)
  The verb BEFRIEND has 1 sense:

1. become friends with

  Familiarity information: BEFRIEND used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BEFRIEND (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they befriend    ... he / she / it befriends   
Past simple: befriended   
Past participle: befriended   
-ing form: befriending   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Become friends with

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Context example:

Have you made friends yet in your new environment?

Hypernyms (to "befriend" is one way to...):

attach; bind; bond; tie (create social or emotional ties)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "befriend"):

chum up; pal; pal up (become friends; act friendly towards)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

 Context examples 

In the same manner he befriended two other countries through which they passed on their way.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

What! villains, would ye raise hands against those who have befriended you?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But no such recollection befriended her.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

And I begged and prayed my aunt—I forget in what terms now, but I remember that they affected me very much then—to befriend and protect me, for my father's sake.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Neither robbers nor tempests befriended them, nor one lucky overturn to introduce them to the hero.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

In this state of suspense they were befriended, not by any sudden illumination of Mr. Woodhouse's mind, or any wonderful change of his nervous system, but by the operation of the same system in another way.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But my night was wretched, my rest broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed near me more than once, and I had again and again to change my quarters; no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Of whom, cried Sir Oliver, I look more particularly to St. James of Compostella, who hath already befriended us this day, and on whose feast I hereby vow that I shall eat a second carp, if he will but interpose a second time.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Not merely when a state of warfare with one young lady might be supposed to recommend the other, but from the very first; and she was not satisfied with expressing a natural and reasonable admiration—but without solicitation, or plea, or privilege, she must be wanting to assist and befriend her.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)