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View synonyms for acquaintance

acquaintance

[ uh-kweyn-tns ]

noun

  1. a person known to one, but usually not a close friend.
  2. the state of being acquainted or casually familiar with someone or something:

    As far as I know, no one of my acquaintance has traveled around the world.

  3. personal knowledge as a result of study, experience, etc.:

    a good acquaintance with French wines.

    Synonyms: awareness, familiarity

  4. (used with a plural verb) the persons with whom one is acquainted.


acquaintance

/ əˈkweɪntəns /

noun

  1. a person with whom one has been in contact but who is not a close friend
  2. knowledge of a person or thing, esp when slight
  3. make the acquaintance of
    to come into social contact with
  4. those persons collectively whom one knows
  5. philosophy the relation between a knower and the object of his knowledge, as contrasted with knowledge by description (esp in the phrase knowledge by acquaintance )
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Derived Forms

  • acˈquaintanceˌship, noun
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Other Words From

  • non·ac·quaint·ance noun
  • non·ac·quaint·ance·ship noun
  • pre·ac·quaint·ance noun
  • pseu·do·ac·quaint·ance noun
  • re·ac·quaint·ance noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of acquaintance1

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English acoyntaunce, aqueinta(u)nce, from Old French acointance; equivalent to acquaint + -ance
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Idioms and Phrases

see nodding acquaintance ; scrape up an acquaintance .
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Synonym Study

Acquaintance, associate, companion, friend refer to a person with whom one is in contact. An acquaintance is someone recognized by sight or someone known, though not intimately: a casual acquaintance. An associate is a person who is often in one's company, usually because of some work, enterprise, or pursuit in common: a business associate. A companion is a person who shares one's activities, fate, or condition: a traveling companion; companion in despair. A friend is a person with whom one is on intimate terms and for whom one feels a warm affection: a trusted friend.
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Example Sentences

Should old acquaintance be forgot, just remember a few of the resolutions the Founding Fathers (would have) made this year.

Another acquaintance described Seevakumaran as “a creep,” who would “constantly hit on women.”

He insulted a female poet of his acquaintance by remarking “that she and her family were Jews.”

Not long ago, I mentioned the Victims of Communism Memorial to an acquaintance.

In the early 2000s, an acquaintance told Sun about the possibility of doing business in Ethiopia.

A child begins to make acquaintance with the images of things when set before a mirror.

He made the acquaintance of some courtiers, who felt or affected an interest in learning and in learned men.

By its operation Gordon Wright, the most sensible man of our acquaintance, is reduced to the level of infancy!

It was the Town Crier, with whom, as with a brother artist, he had picked acquaintance the day before.

For Lettice—the tender woman of his first acquaintance—had obviously experienced a moment of reaction.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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