Acquaintance \Ac*quaint"ance\, n. [OE. aqueintance, OF.
acointance, fr. acointier. See Acquaint.]
1. A state of being acquainted, or of having intimate, or
more than slight or superficial, knowledge; personal
knowledge gained by intercourse short of that of
friendship or intimacy; as, I know the man; but have no
acquaintance with him.
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Contract no friendship, or even acquaintance, with a
guileful man. --Sir W.
Jones.
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2. A person or persons with whom one is acquainted.
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Montgomery was an old acquaintance of Ferguson.
--Macaulay.
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Note: In this sense the collective term acquaintance was
formerly both singular and plural, but it is now
commonly singular, and has the regular plural
acquaintances.
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To be of acquaintance, to be intimate.
To take acquaintance of or with, to make the acquaintance
of. [Obs.]
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Syn: Familiarity; intimacy; fellowship; knowledge.
Usage: Acquaintance, Familiarity, Intimacy. These words
mark different degrees of closeness in social
intercourse. Acquaintance arises from occasional
intercourse; as, our acquaintance has been a brief
one. We can speak of a slight or an intimate
acquaintance. Familiarity is the result of continued
acquaintance. It springs from persons being frequently
together, so as to wear off all restraint and reserve;
as, the familiarity of old companions. Intimacy is the
result of close connection, and the freest interchange
of thought; as, the intimacy of established
friendship.
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Our admiration of a famous man lessens upon our
nearer acquaintance with him. --Addison.
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We contract at last such a familiarity with them
as makes it difficult and irksome for us to call
off our minds. --Atterbury.
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It is in our power to confine our friendships
and intimacies to men of virtue. --Rogers.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
acquaintance
n 1: personal knowledge or information about someone or something
[syn: familiarity, conversance, conversancy]
2: a relationship less intimate than friendship [syn: acquaintanceship]
3: a person with whom you are acquainted; "I have trouble
remembering the names of all my acquaintances"; "we are
friends of the family" [syn: friend]
WordNet (r) 2.0
111 Moby Thesaurus words for "acquaintance":
account, acquaintedness, advocate, alter ego, amigo, announcement,
appreciation, apprehension, associate, awareness, backer,
best friend, blue book, bosom friend, briefing, brother, bulletin,
casual acquaintance, close acquaintance, close friend, colleague,
communication, communique, companion, comrade, confidant,
confidante, consciousness, corpus, crony, data, datum, directory,
dispatch, enlightenment, evidence, experience, expertise, facts,
factual base, factual information, familiar, familiarity,
familiarization, favorer, fellow, fellow creature, fellowman,
friend, gen, general information, grasp, guidebook, handout,
hard information, incidental information, info, information,
inseparable friend, instruction, intelligence, intimacy, intimate,
introduction, inwardness, ken, knockdown, know-how, knowing,
knowledge, light, lover, mate, mention, message, neighbor, notice,
notification, other self, partisan, pickup, practical knowledge,
presentation, private knowledge, privity, promotional material,
proof, publication, publicity, ratio cognoscendi, release, report,
repository, self-knowledge, sidelight, statement, supporter,
sympathizer, technic, technics, technique, the dope, the goods,
the know, the scoop, transmission, understanding, well-wisher,
white book, white paper, word
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
ACQUAINTANCE, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from,
but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight
when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or
famous.
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993)
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