Grammatically, "disfriend" would likely make the most sense, similar to "disassociate," "disunite" or "disenfranchise".
The question becomes why we need any such awkward words when perfectly usable words exist in the English language to describe this situation, such as "estrange" or "alienate".
You know, "befriend" is an actual word, also. Like one more syllable would kill people ...
Well, if the opposite of 'betroth' is 'belie', then the opposite of 'befriend' might be 'bestranger'. So 'estrange' would probably be the most appropriate word in this case.
Their "researchers" said they found unfriend was more common, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that in my life.
EDIT:
So I went to check Wordie.org to see which was more common there, only to find that sometime over the past week (since I last logged in) they merged with Wordnik. So now I'm doubly displeased. However, "unfriend" beat "defriend" 34 examples to 20.
Interestingly, though "unfriend" beats "defriend" by a huge margin in the common-usage test, "unfriended" loses to "defriended" by a (smaller, but still) significant margin.
Nonetheless, I'm going with unfriend. I've got a couple of reasons for this:
1) "Un-" carries a sense of the reversal of a state of being, whereas "de-" generally implies some sort of actual removal or destruction. Since "unfriend" is specifically a reference to changing your relationship to someone on a website, rather than the removal of any actual content, "un" feels better.
2) "Defriend" and "defriended" are too phonically close to "defend" and "defended" for my taste. When I hear them spoken, I feel as though I'm hearing a word mispronounced.
3) When this verb eventually becomes a noun, as it likely will, I'd much rather refer to someone as my "unfriend" than my "defriend."
I generally take "un-" as "not" -- I'm unafraid in the face of danger, and uncommonly unapologetic about it! "De-" I would think of as the removal prefix. My decaffeinated coffee keeps my hands steady as I delouse the scalp.
I've known people to go from unmarried to married to divorced (de-vorced?), but I'm not sure if unmarry is a usable verb.
I'm sure I'm missing several counterexamples where removal is signified by un- and de- is used differently, but that is my reasoning for "defriend"
This post was a long time ago, but walking around on Tuesday I thought of it for some reason and the recent post mentioning the issue again spurred me to post.
Oooh! I just thought of another context example! Even for made-up words like Winnie The Pooh's "unbirthday" it's "not" -- so you will totally have "unfriend"s in the future, but possibly only after you defriend them.
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The question becomes why we need any such awkward words when perfectly usable words exist in the English language to describe this situation, such as "estrange" or "alienate".
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Well, if the opposite of 'betroth' is 'belie', then the opposite of 'befriend' might be 'bestranger'. So 'estrange' would probably be the most appropriate word in this case.
Reply
EDIT:
So I went to check Wordie.org to see which was more common there, only to find that sometime over the past week (since I last logged in) they merged with Wordnik. So now I'm doubly displeased. However, "unfriend" beat "defriend" 34 examples to 20.
Reply
Reply
Nonetheless, I'm going with unfriend. I've got a couple of reasons for this:
1) "Un-" carries a sense of the reversal of a state of being, whereas "de-" generally implies some sort of actual removal or destruction. Since "unfriend" is specifically a reference to changing your relationship to someone on a website, rather than the removal of any actual content, "un" feels better.
2) "Defriend" and "defriended" are too phonically close to "defend" and "defended" for my taste. When I hear them spoken, I feel as though I'm hearing a word mispronounced.
3) When this verb eventually becomes a noun, as it likely will, I'd much rather refer to someone as my "unfriend" than my "defriend."
Reply
I've known people to go from unmarried to married to divorced (de-vorced?), but I'm not sure if unmarry is a usable verb.
I'm sure I'm missing several counterexamples where removal is signified by un- and de- is used differently, but that is my reasoning for "defriend"
This post was a long time ago, but walking around on Tuesday I thought of it for some reason and the recent post mentioning the issue again spurred me to post.
Oooh! I just thought of another context example! Even for made-up words like Winnie The Pooh's "unbirthday" it's "not" -- so you will totally have "unfriend"s in the future, but possibly only after you defriend them.
Reply
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