1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, p. 143.Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me.
1989, Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker, Befriending one of the 112 managing directors was not enough; you had to befriend a managing director with clout. There was one small problem, of course. Bosses were not always eager to befriend trainees.
1999, Jonathan Cole, About Face, "We had a professional relationship, whereas the previous vicar was a friend and had befriended me." "Were you available to befriend people? You said it in a passive voice, as though others befriended you.
2002, Jan Yager, When Friendship Hurts, If you want to befriend the Loner, you have to be willing to show patience as he becomes more comfortable with you and what friendship entails.
2005, Philip Burnard, Counselling Skills for Health Professionals, The social worker very clearly befriends the families with whom she works, and the GP becomes a friend to many of his patients.
2006, Christiane Sanderson, Counselling Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, Child sexual abusers are highly manipulative in their befriending of parents and children and are able to deceive all types of family.
(transitive, dated) To act as a friend to, to assist.
unknown dateJonathan SwiftBrother servants must befriend one another.
1916, Theodore Dreiser, Franklin Booth, A Hoosier Holiday, 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 youngsters - until she could find a house.
1937, May, This particular trainer who had repeatedly befriended "Willie" in many other ways, left the circus for a short time and upon returning to the lot approached him, thinking "Willie" would remember him
1939, Philip Lindsay, A Mirror for Ruffians, He fled to Switzerland to escape military service, and there was befriended by the revolutionary, Angelica Balabanoff, who, pitying him in his misery and loneliness, befriended him, helping him translate a German pamphlet because he did not know the language.
1712, Joseph Addison, . As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, by His Majesty's servants, Act II, edited and published by Jacob Tonson (1733)See them embarked, And tell me if the winds and seas befriend them.
1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present (book), ch. 4, "Morrison's Pill"This Universe has its Laws. If we walk according to the Law, the Law-Maker will befriend us; if not, not.
