phrases - How come "John is friends with Jane"?


The usage in the question title seems common enough to me, though it may be more common in Britain.


But I can't exactly see what "part of speech" the word friends is here, and I can't come up with any related forms. You'd never hear, for example, John is enemies with Jack. What is going on?



Answer



We don’t have ‘make enemies with’, but we do have ‘make enemies of’, just as we have ‘make friends of’, so in ‘friends with’, ‘friends’ would appear to be a noun. (The OED has ‘friends with’ under its definitions of ‘friend’ as a noun.) ‘Friends’, because friendship requires two participants as a minumum. It’s not just friends, of course. We can be ‘pals with’, ‘buddies with’, ‘mates with’, ‘chums with’, ‘partners with’ . . .


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