acquaintance
noun
Robert Burns
Did you know?
What's the difference between friends and acquaintances?
People often distinguish between an acquaintance and a friend, holding that the former should be used primarily to refer to someone with whom one is not especially close. Many of the earliest uses of acquaintance were in fact in reference to a person with whom one was very close, but the word is now generally reserved for those who are known only slightly.
Acquaintance is often found paired with nodding. Although nodding acquaintance sounds like it describes a person who is known just enough to nod at, it tends to be used instead to refer to a thing or field with which one has a small amount of knowledge or familiarity (and this is the meaning that the phrase has had since its introduction to the language in the early 19th century).
Examples of acquaintance in a Sentence
Julian Barnes, New Yorker, 20 Sept. 1993
But all those qualities are so wrapped up in others that one could hardly ask for two men who are, at first acquaintance, more different.
—Peter Garrison, Air & Space, October/November 1991
A classical education, or at any rate a very extensive acquaintance with English literature, ancient and modern, appears to me quite indispensable for the person who would do any just to your clergyman; and I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.
—Jane Austen, letter, 11 Dec. 1815
She ran into an old acquaintance at the grocery store.
our family's close acquaintance with our neighbors
She struck up an acquaintance with a man from the city.
He seemed cold at first, but on closer acquaintance I realized that he was just shy.
While he has some acquaintance with the subject, he is not an expert.
Melissa Santos, Axios, 28 Oct. 2024
After publishing a New York Times piece about grieving her late husband, the waggish writer received an email from a kindly old acquaintance who was also recently widowed.
—Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY, 24 Oct. 2024
Hill actually was waiting on the acquaintance – a resident of that neighborhood – who’d asked to meet him, according to prosecutors.
—Amanda Musa, CNN, 24 Oct. 2024
Many times, during casual conversations, new acquaintances say to me: ‘Oh, Romania.
—Marta Balaga, Variety, 10 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for acquaintance 
Dictionary Entries Near acquaintance
Cite this Entry
“Acquaintance.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acquaintance. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
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acquaintance
noun
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