befriend

Verb

befriend (third-person singular simple present befriends, present participle befriending, simple past and past participle befriended)

1. (also, figuratively, transitive) To become a friend of (someone), to make friends with (someone).
   • Good Seruilius, vvill you befriend mee ſo farre, as to vſe mine ovvne vvords to him?c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
   • […] I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, […] Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me.1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “Solitude”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 143

   Antonyms:

   alienate, befoe, defriend, unfriend

2. (transitive, dated except social work) To act as a friend to (someone, especially a client) by providing companionship and support; to assist, to help.
   • [B]e ſure employ ſome of the Servants to hold the Horſe vvhen your Maſter mounts. This I vvould have you do, vvhen your Maſter only alights, to call in for a fevv Minutes: For Brother-ſervants muſt alvvays befriend one another, and that alſo concerns your Maſter's Honour; becauſe he cannot do leſs...1731 (date written; published 1745), [Jonathan] Swift, “Directions to the Groom”, in Directions to Servants […], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], and M. Cooper, […], →OCLC, page 69
   • [O]ne house, a red one, occupied by an Irish section boss, whose wife (my mother having befriended her years before when first she and her husband came to Sullivan) had now, at the time my mother was compelled to make this return pilgrimage, befriended us by letting us stay—mother and us three...1916, Theodore Dreiser, “A Lush, Egyptian Land”, in A Hoosier Holiday, New York, N.Y.: John Lane; London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, →OCLC, page 417
3. (figuratively, transitive) To benefit or favour (someone or something); also, to advocate or promote (someone or something).
   • Hence therefore, euery leader to his charge, / For on their anſvvere vvill vve ſet on them, / And God befriend vs as our cauſe is juſt.c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; […], quarto edition, London: […] P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1598, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]...
   • Sooth[sayer]. […] [I]f it vvill pleaſe Cæſar / To be ſo good to Cæſar, as to heare me: / I ſhall beſeech him to befriend himſelfe. / Por[tia]. VVhy knovv'ſt thou any harme's intended tovvards him?1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...