“For without friends one would not choose to live,

though (s)he had all other goods”

(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. 8)

“Oh my friends, there are no friends”

(Diogenes Laertius, attributed to Aristotle)

From Middle English frend, freend, from Old English frēond (“friend, relative, lover”, literally “loving[-one]”), from Proto-Germanic *frijōndz (“lover, friend”), from Proto-Indo-European *prēy-, *prāy- (“to like, love”), equivalent to free + -nd

Old English freo “exempt from; not in bondage, acting of one's own will,” also “noble; joyful,” from Proto-Germanic *friaz “beloved; not in bondage” (source also of Old Frisian fri, Old Saxon vri, Old High German vri, German frei, Dutch vrij, Gothic freis “free”), from PIE *priy-a- “dear, beloved,” from root *pri- “to love.”

The sense evolution from “to love” to “free” is perhaps from the terms “beloved” or “friend” being applied to the free members of one's clan (as opposed to slaves; compare Latin liberi, meaning both “free persons” and “children of a family”). For the older sense in Germanic, compare Gothic frijon “to love;” Old English freod “affection, friendship, peace,” friga “love,” friðu “peace;” Old Norse friðr “peace, personal security; love, friendship,” German Friede “peace;” Old English freo “wife;” Old Norse Frigg, name of the wife of Odin, literally “beloved” or “loving;” Middle Low German vrien “to take to wife,” Dutch vrijen, German freien “to woo.”