An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Freund

by Friedrich Kluge

Freund, masculine, from the equivalent Middle High German vriunt(d), Old High German friunt, masculine, ‘friend, relative’; compare Old Saxon friunt, ‘friend, relative,’ Dutch vriend, Anglo-Saxon freónd, English friend, Gothic frijônds. Gothic frijônds, and hence also the other words, are participles from an Old Teutonic and Gothic verb frijôn, ‘to love,’ Anglo-Saxon freógan, ‘to love’ (see frei); therefore the word, signifying literally ‘lover,’ is used in many dialects (even yet in Low German, Hessian, Franconian, Alsatian, Suabian, and Bavarian) for ‘relative.’ As to the formation, see Heiland, Feind.