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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

acquaintance.

A state of being acquainted with a person; originally indicating friendship, intimacy, but now suggesting a slight knowledge less deep than that of friendship; acquaintanceship.

12 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/əˈkweɪntəns/Received-Pronunciation/ʌˈkweɪn.təns/US
  1. A state of being acquainted with a person; originally indicating friendship, intimacy, but now suggesting a slight knowledge less deep than that of friendship; acquaintanceship.

    uncountable
    I know of the man; but have no acquaintance with him.
  2. A person or persons with whom one is acquainted.

    countable
  3. Such people collectively; one's circle of acquaintances (with plural concord).

    uncountable
  4. Personal knowledge (with a specific subject etc.).

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English aqueyntaunce, from Anglo-Norman aquaintaunce, aqueintance, Old French acointance (“friendship, familiarity”), from Old French acointier (“to acquaint”). Compare French accointance. Morphologically acquaint + -ance.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.