Friend (A)

The second in a duel, as “Name your friend,” “Captain B. acted as his friend.”

“Mr. Baillie was to have acted as Disraeli’s friend, if there had been a duel between that statesman and Daniel OʹConnell.”—Newspaper paragraph (December, 1885).

Better kinde frend than fremd kinde (motto of the Waterton family) means “better kind friend (i.e. neighbour) than a kinsman who dwells in foreign parts.” Probably it is Prov. xxvii. 10, “Better is a neighbour that is near, than a brother far off.” In which case fremd would be = stranger. Better a kind friend than a kinsman who is a stranger.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.