ACQUAINTANCE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Acquaintance

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/əkwˈeɪntəns/ Listen

noun

Acquaintance n.

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. "Contract no friendship, or even acquaintance, with a guileful man."

A person or persons with whom one is acquainted. "Montgomery was an old acquaintance of Ferguson." 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.

To be of acquaintance, to be intimate.

To take acquaintance of or To take acquaintance with, to make the acquaintance of. (Obs.)

Synonyms: Familiarity; intimacy; fellowship; knowledge. 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. "Our admiration of a famous man lessens upon our nearer acquaintance with him." "We contract at last such a familiarity with them as makes it difficult and irksome for us to call off our minds." "It is in our power to confine our friendships and intimacies to men of virtue."

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Etymology of 'Acquaintance'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Acquaintance" Quotes from Famous Books

... culture imply? A developed insight into the beauties of thought; a just appreciation of style; an intimate acquaintance with the best authors; an abundant vocabulary and graceful expression. Can these be acquired in a year? or is the time ...

— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan

... mere questions of grooving, and black soldiers jostle so inextricably with black guns, that the common reader and the mere student of human nature will find an interest in the book, as well as that intelligent lady of our acquaintance, who, having heard of the brilliant ornithology of the tropics, was eager to read about the hundred-pound ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... "I made her acquaintance towards the close of October, 1915, when, as a heavily wounded patient in the Military Hospital of Krushevatz, I became a prisoner, first of the Germans and then of ...

— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren

... his partner, slightly—"Obenreizer. '—Of specially commanding to you M. Jules Obenreizer, of Soho Square, London (north side), henceforth fully accredited as our agent, and who has already had the honour of making the acquaintance of your Mr. Vendale, in his (said M. Obenreizer's) native country, Switzerland.' To be sure! pooh pooh, what have I been thinking of! I remember now; 'when travelling ...

— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins

... my Cornelian" was a Cambridge chorister named Edleston, whose life, as Harness has recorded in a MS. note, Byron saved from drowning. This began their acquaintance. (See Byron's lines on "The Cornelian," Poems, vol. i. 66-67.) Edleston died of consumption in May, 1811. Byron, writing to Mrs. Pigot, gives the following ...

— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

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