Earliest Known Usage:
in use as a verb since the 13th century.
Example:
"When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended, that for the fault's love is the offender friended." – William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, 1623
About the Word:
Friend as a verb has attracted considerable attention in recent years because of its role in social media, where it refers to 'clicking a button on a computer screen to indicate that I do not hate a person.' (That's an informal gloss; the actual Merriam-Webster definition is "to include (someone) in a list of designated friends on a person's social networking site.") Its use as a verb is widely viewed as a modern phenomenon, but friend has occupied this part of speech (in the sense "to act as the friend of") for almost 800 years now.
