[W/K] :: Acquaintance

  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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  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]

  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
  
  

  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.