Word of the Day ·
familiarity
noun
What it means
- countableuncountableThe state of being extremely friendly; intimacy.
Do not keep familiarity with any but those, with whom you may improve your time.
1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, page 21 more example
It is also folly and injustice to deprive children[…]of their fathers familiaritie, and ever to shew them a surly, austere, grim, and disdainefull countenance, hoping thereby to keepe them in awfull feare and duteous obedience.
1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC - countableuncountableUndue intimacy; inappropriate informality, impertinence.
Murrel did not in the least object to being called a monkey, yet he always felt a slight distaste when Julian Archer called him one.[…]It had to do with a fine shade between familiarity and intimacy which men like Murrel are never ready to disregard, however ready they may be to black their faces.
1927, G K Chesterton, The Return of Don Quixote, page 5 - countableuncountableAn instance of familiar behaviour.
The gaunt men carried swords and daggers with a new familiarity, and even the women had poniards belted at their waists.
2003, Christopher Paolini, “Dragon Tales”, in Eragon, pages 22-23
In a sentence
It is also folly and injustice to deprive children[…]of their fathers familiaritie, and ever to shew them a surly, austere, grim, and disdainefull countenance, hoping thereby to keepe them in awfull feare and duteous obedience.
1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
Where it comes from
- Latinfamiliāritātem
- Middle Frenchfamiliarité
- Englishfamiliarity
From Middle French familiarité, from Latin familiāritātem. Displaced native Old English hīwcūþnes. Morphologically familiar + -ity.
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