nodding acquaintance

American  

noun

1. a slight, incomplete, or superficial knowledge (of something or someone).

   He had only a nodding acquaintance with Italian and didn't trust it to get him through the tour. Although we were neighbors for several years, we had only a nodding acquaintance.

2. a person with whom one is only slightly acquainted.

   I don't really know what he's like—he's only a nodding acquaintance.

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nodding acquaintance Idioms  

1. Superficial knowledge of someone or something, as in I have a nodding acquaintance with the company president, or She has a nodding acquaintance with that software program. This expression alludes to knowing someone just well enough to nod or bow upon meeting him or her. “Early 1800s]

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Etymology

Origin of nodding acquaintance

First recorded in 1860–65

Example Sentences

Others with whom we have only a nodding acquaintance, not a social relationship, seemed inquisitive and gossipy.

From Washington Post • Jul. 16, 2021

My dealings with Ted were impersonal, although we had a nodding acquaintance from performances we both attended at the New York City Ballet.

From New York Times • Dec. 31, 2018

She talks on a dais the way she does to buddies over lunch—in a trumpety voice, flattened across mid-American vowels—and has only a nodding acquaintance with many decorums.

From The New Yorker • Dec. 31, 2018

Lord Prescott has remained what he describes as a "nodding acquaintance" when they meet in Parliament, where he arrived in 1979 after getting elected in Loughborough.

From BBC • Jun. 18, 2012

I have no particular desire to be struck by a shell or a bullet, and up to now I have had only a nodding acquaintance with either.

From The Red Horizon by MacGill, Patrick