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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

intimate.

Closely acquainted; familiar.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈɪn.tɪ.mət/
  1. Closely acquainted; familiar.

    an intimate friend
    He and his sister deeply valued their intimate relationship as they didn't have much else to live for.
  2. Personal; private.

    an intimate setting
  3. Pertaining to sex organs or underwear.

    euphemistic
  4. Pertaining to sexual acts or a sexual relationship.

    euphemistic
    She enjoyed some intimate time alone with her husband.
  5. Pertaining to details that require great familiarity to know.

    The candidate showed an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of politics.
  6. Very finely mixed.

    Black powder consists of an intimate mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur.
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Latin intimātus, the perfect passive participle of intimō (“to put or bring into, to impress, to make familiar”) (see -ate (adjective forming suffix)), from intimus (“inmost, innermost, most intimate”), superlative of intus (“within”), from in (“in”); see interior.

noun/ˈɪn.tɪ.mət/
  1. A very close friend.

    Only a couple of intimates had ever read his writing.
  2. Women's underwear, sleepwear, or lingerie, especially offered for sale in a store.

    You'll find bras and panties in the intimates section upstairs.
Where this word comes from

From a substantivization of the above adjective, see -ate (noun-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.

verb/ˈɪn.tɪ.meɪt/
  1. To suggest or disclose (something) discreetly.

    ambitransitive
    He intimated that we should leave before the argument escalated.
  2. To notify.

    India · transitive
    I will intimate you when the details are available.
Where this word comes from

From Latin intimātus, see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more. Cognate with French intimer.

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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.