PERMANENT DISPUTE RECORD
ALL DISPUTES ↗One scholarly question. Every attached source. The present editorial state, without pretending the last word has been written.
No. It is one source-reported Old English textual witness, not a birth certificate for the word or its earliest surviving physical token.
/frɛnd/ · English common noun and historical adjective
English friend continues Middle English frẹ̄nd and Old English frēond, an inherited Germanic nd-stem agent noun. OED identifies cognates across West, East, and North Germanic and analyzes them as noun uses of a present participle of the Germanic base behind free; Bosworth–Toller explicitly calls Old English freónd the participle of freón, a verb meaning free or love; American Heritage independently explains the formation as originally one who loves. The historical noun later covers intimate companion, ally, supporter, relation, lover, form of address, Quaker, climbing device, and social-network contact. The graph displays a normalized *frijōnd- participial formation, Germanic *frī-, the proposed Indo-European comparison *prī-, and then stops.
DIRECT CLAIM EVIDENCE
A citation is not a vote. Each record says whether the work supports, challenges, contradicts, or contextualizes the position—and identifies the exact locus used.
Supplies the textual witness without an inspected manuscript claim.
Beowulf 1018 quotationThe attestation remains source-reported.