acquaintance
nounEtymology
From Middle English aqueyntaunce, from Anglo-Norman aquaintaunce, aqueintance, Old French acointance (“friendship, familiarity”), from Old French acointier (“to acquaint”). Compare French accointance. Morphologically acquaint + -ance.
- derived from acointier
- derived from acointance
- derived from aquaintaunce
- inherited from aqueyntaunce
Definitions
A state of being acquainted with a person
A state of being acquainted with a person; originally indicating friendship, intimacy, but now suggesting a slight knowledge less deep than that of friendship; acquaintanceship.
- I know of the man; but have no acquaintance with him.
- Contract no friendſhip, or even acquaintance, with a guileful man : he reſembles a coal, which when hot burneth the hand, and when cold blacketh it.
A person or persons with whom one is acquainted.
- Montgomery was an old acquaintance of Ferguson.
Such people collectively
Such people collectively; one's circle of acquaintances (with plural concord).
- Having therefore conſulted with my Wife, and ſome of my Acquaintance, I determined to go again to Sea.
- Their mother […] was busy in the mean time in keeping up her connections, as she termed a numerous acquaintance, lest her girls should want a proper introduction into the great world.
›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer
Personal knowledge (with a specific subject etc.).
- The words of these songs were either without meaning, or derived from an idiom with which Watt, a very fair linguist, had no acquaintance.
The neighborhood
- synonymfamiliarity
- synonymfellowship
- synonymintimacy
- synonymknowledge
- synonymacquaintance
- synonymkith
- neighboracquaint
- neighborassociate
- neighborfriend
- neighborperson
- neighborneighbor
- neighborwell-wisher
Derived
acquaintanced, acquaintanceless, acquaintance rape, acquaintanceship, chance acquaintance, disacquaintance, inacquaintance, make someone's acquaintance, nodding acquaintance, nonacquaintance, preacquaintance, reacquaintance, renew acquaintances, scrape acquaintance, semiacquaintance, unacquaintance
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at acquaintance. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at acquaintance. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
9 hops · closes at acquaintance
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA