unfriend vs defriend
The New Oxford American Dictionary announced unfriend as its Word of the Year, but some people (i.e. some Twitter users) are complaining that they use or prefer to use defriend rather than unfriend. Having never heard defriend until yesterday, I’m squarely in the unfriend camp, and in the interest of combating some dubious linguistic claims, I’d like to review the meanings of these prefixes.
There are two un- prefixes in English. One is the negative un- which functions similar to the prefixes in- or non-. The other indicates a reverse or opposite action: undo.
- un: not, lacking, or contrary
- unhappy
- unlikely
- unattractive
- uneducated
- unconstitutional
- unchristian
- unamerican
- un: reverse/opposite action
- untie
- unzip
- unwind
- undo
- unfasten
- uncork
- unring the bell
- unbreak my heart
de- also means reverse or opposite action, but unlike the second type of un-, it also indicates removal.
- de: reverse/opposite action or removal
- deactivate
- decode
- deconstruct
- defuse
- defragment
- de-ice
- de-junk
- debug
- debunk
Thus, both forms are valid, and the arguments that unfriend is unacceptable because un- signifies negation are totally specious. Unfriend is a wonderful word—I mean, remember when friend was a noun and not a reversible action?!
