familiarity
Americannoun
-
familiarities
plural
-
thorough knowledge or mastery of a thing, subject, etc.
-
the state of being familiar; friendly relationship; close acquaintance; intimacy.
-
an absence of ceremony and formality; informality.
- Synonyms:
- unconstraint
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freedom of behavior justified only by the closest relationship; undue intimacy.
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Often familiarities. an instance of such freedom, as in action or speech.
-
a sexual liberty or impropriety.
noun
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reasonable knowledge or acquaintance, as with a subject or place
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close acquaintanceship or intimacy
-
undue intimacy
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(sometimes plural) an instance of unwarranted intimacy
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of familiarity
1350–1400; Middle English familiarite (< Anglo-French ) < Latin familiāritās intimacy. See familiar, -ity
Explanation
Familiarity is the state of knowing something very well. It's also a casual way of behaving. Your familiarity with your best friend means that you can say whatever you want around her. Familiarity is from the Latin word familiaritatem for "intimacy, friendship.” Familiarity is used in situations that people know well. A painter has a familiarity with brushes and canvas. When there’s familiarity with a task, people aren’t stressed, because they’ve done it before. This word also refers to a casual way of acting: if you hug someone, it shows familiarity. That kind of familiarity is the opposite of aloofness and formality.
Vocabulary lists containing familiarity
The Color of My Words
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Elijah of Buxton
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A Heart in a Body in the World
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
There’s a clip of Zuckerberg arriving at the Cheeky Pint with an authentic keg of Guinness straight from Dublin, a baller move that signals familiarity with Collison’s program and, presumably, what’s inside the barrel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
And while the Dodgers haven’t done anything against them yet, that familiarity could help going forward.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
Oppenheim said neither Holmes nor Evans voiced familiarity with his work when they opened their doors.
From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026
“The question is ultimately about familiarity, affinity, and allyship—not as symbolic gestures, but as evidence accumulated over years of shared political struggle. It is a proxy for trust,” he wrote.
From Slate ● Oct. 6, 2026
He turned to her and said, “About time,” when the train finally creaked in, with the familiarity strangers adopt with each other after sharing in the disappointment of a public service.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
It is not, mercifully, a reboot of the original and iconic series starring Andy Griffith, but fans of that “Matlock” will find tonal familiarities in this one.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2024
The courts in the early British colonies of Connecticut and New Haven ultimately indicted at least 34 women and men for the crimes of witchcraft and familiarities with the devil.
From Washington Times ● May 26, 2023
Yet in “Jobe’z World” many of the departures from daily familiarities are minor, fussy, and stepwise rather than daringly disjunctive.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 11, 2019
None of these episodes are bad, but they lack the magic trick that is St. Aubyn’s prose, replacing the books’ singular mix of high style and bleak substance with the energetic familiarities of genre.
From Slate ● May 10, 2018
Colors weren’t true either, but rather a vague assortment of shaded pastels that indicated not so much color as faded familiarities.
From "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
