Other forms: acquaintances
An acquaintance is somebody you know slightly — more than a stranger, less than a friend. A business acquaintance, an old acquaintance, a mutual acquaintance.
The word is precise and useful because English has no other name for that relationship. It is also the state of knowing somebody: make somebody's acquaintance is formal, and on closer acquaintance means once you know them better. Note nodding acquaintance, meaning you know them just well enough to nod at, and Auld Lang Syne's opening line, which is where most English speakers have met the word without noticing.
1nounacquaintanceSomebody you know slightly.
“He was an acquaintance rather than a friend.”
2nounstateThe state of knowing somebody or something.
“Her acquaintance with the subject was thin.”
acquaintance is a slight relationship.
Old French acointance comes from a verb meaning to make known, from Latin cognoscere, to know — the same root as recognise and cognition. An acquaintance is somebody who has been made known to you and no more than that.
Old French
acointance — friendship, familiarity
Anglo-Norman
aquaintaunce
Middle English
aqueyntaunce
English, today
acquaintance
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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Family & People, Moods & Relationships