In these troubled times, I thought you might enjoy a post with a positive subject matter so today I’ll be looking at words and phrases around the subject of making friends and being friendly. You’ll notice there are several phrasal verbs in the post.
Starting with a phrasal verb, if you begin a friendship with someone, you can say that you strike up a friendship:
He’d struck up a friendship with an older guy on his course.
If you are friendly towards a stranger, often in order to help them, you might say you befriend them:
Luckily, I was befriended by an elderly man who showed me where to get a cup of coffee.
If two people like each other and get on well as soon as they meet, you can say, informally, that they hit it off:
We met at Lucy’s party and hit it off immediately.
I didn’t really hit it off with his mother.
The verb click has a similar meaning, with the additional suggestion that the people understand each other and think in a similar way:
We met at a work party and clicked right away.
If two people develop a friendly or loving connection with each other, you can say they bond:
She didn’t really bond with the other team members.
If people become friends because of a shared interest, you might say they bond over that thing:
We bonded over our love of birds and vegan cake.
Someone who makes an effort to be friends with a person or group, often because it will give them an advantage, may be said to get in with them:
She tried to get in with the cool kids at school.
Something, (often a bad thing), that causes people to become friends may be said to bring them together:
As so often happens, the disaster brought the whole community together.
Of course, relationships may end as well as start. If two people stop being friends after an argument, you can say, informally, that they fall out:
Unfortunately, the sisters fell out over money.
If a friendship between two people gradually ends over time, you might say the people drift apart:
You know how it goes – our lives took different directions and we just drifted apart.
If someone suddenly ends a friendship with someone, you can use the slightly informal verb drop:
I don’t know what I did to offend her, but she just dropped me.
Finally, to end on a more cheerful note, if you start to be friends with someone that you used to know well in the past, you may be said to rekindle the friendship:
I was glad of the opportunity to rekindle an old friendship.
Should not there be a comma before “so” in line 3 ?
Thank you for sharing the language of friendship. It enriches my vocabulary with a specific English.
the post is very helpful
I will use these terms and phrasal verbs to make many new friends who I can now say I hit it off and click with. Thank you for for befriending the internet and helping me get in with a new social group.
Hobnobbing
Rubbing shoulders
Fraternising
Hi Yuti! These are all great additions, thanks! Best wishes from Cambridge.
Nice, i enjoy learn new phrasal ans words!!
It’s always nice to know and understand English in its natural form.
Very cool post, even for advanced ESL students. I didn’t know some of these. 🙂
Hi ))
Nice post—has a good beat to it.
Enjoyed reading your mind phrasal verb
When two people like each other and get on well as soon as they meet, or at first sight, we describe the situation idiomatically and ironically with this clause: “a pot which finds its lid.” Thank you, Kate.
Hi Maryem! I love that phrase – thank you!
I love that phrase
And I Love you, Kate- thank you. By the way, I used (clause), while you used (phrase) to indicate the Libyan idiom. Does it mean my use of the term clause here is unnatural?
Hey, thanks for this idiom. Can u show us by using it in a sentence.
Thanks, everyone, for your kind comments.