The verb to friend is used for making friends in social nets connecting people with similar interests. What is the antonym, the negative verb, meaning to delete somebody from your "friends"? What's the correct prefix? I found different versions on the Internet.
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1Are you talking about on Facebook and other social media sites specifically? – Catija Jun 23 '16 at 02:50
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4to unfriend, naturally – CowperKettle Jun 23 '16 at 02:51
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@Catija, yes, which one to choose --to unfriend, because there's unfriendly or to defriend, (reminding defrost )? – V.V. Jun 23 '16 at 03:09
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A good search line for Google is "friend antonym" or "[any word] antonym". – CowperKettle Jun 23 '16 at 04:13
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2Obviously, it's to enemy a person. (Just kidding!) – ErikE Jun 23 '16 at 16:35
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@ErikE, it would probably be more like to foe a person. – bb216b3acfd8f72cbc8f899d4d6963 Jun 24 '16 at 03:19
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@Peanut Enemy and foe are synonyms. – ErikE Jun 24 '16 at 03:25
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@ErikE, it sounds more correct when saying "to foe a person" rather than "to enemy a person". – bb216b3acfd8f72cbc8f899d4d6963 Jun 24 '16 at 03:44
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@Peanut I disagree. They both sound equally incorrect. :) – ErikE Jun 24 '16 at 03:45
3 Answers
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You're looking for unfriend.
unfriend
to remove (someone) from a list of designated friends on a person's social networking Web site
And apparently, defriend works too.
defriend
unfriend
I've also heard people use the words delete and remove.
- I deleted him from (my) Facebook/my friends list.
- I removed him from (my) Facebook/my friends list.
All of these options seem correct. They are all understandable.
I had a feeling unfriend was more popular than defriend because I do not often hear or read about people "defriending" one another. Thank you to @AndreaGottardo for providing additional information using Google Trends.
In the above graph, unfriend is blue while defriend is red.
Nathan Tuggy
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Em.
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Looks like unfriend is much more used compared to defriend. See here: https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=unfriend%2C%20defriend – Andrea Gottardo Jun 23 '16 at 12:26
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Yes, thank you so much! I need to learn how to use these google resources to provide more insightful answers. – Em. Jun 23 '16 at 12:32
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I've also heard the term blocked, but it's used inappropriately. It happens that many people have their information locked down so only their friends can see their updates. Thus removing a current friend effectively blocks that person, even though that's not the actual action. Still, I hear it enough that it should be mentioned. – corsiKa Jun 23 '16 at 15:23
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I have never heard "unfriend." I'm gonna take a poll of my friends who use FB. My use of defriend may precede FB, going back to MySpace, LiveJournal, etc. – Alan Carmack Jun 23 '16 at 15:24
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I prefer defriend, but there is unfriend, which I never use. Either one can be considered "correct."
Alan Carmack
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As "to friend" might specific to certain networks (and unfriend or defriend have been proposed), you have the option to defollow. You can remain "friend" in some sense, but stop be informed about updates. In a more generic sense, you can block.
Laurent Duval
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