familiar

UK/fəˈmɪl.i.ə/US/fəˈmɪl.jəɹ/

adjectiveB14 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #984 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: familiars

Something familiar is something you already know without being told — a face in the crowd you have seen before, a song you can hum without remembering where you learned it, the particular smell of your own kitchen.

It runs two ways and this is where learners slip: a thing is familiar to you, and you are familiar with a thing. The name is familiar to me. Are you familiar with the software? It also carries a warning sense — being too familiar with someone means treating them as though you know them far better than you do, and it is not a compliment. In old stories a familiar is a noun: the animal that keeps a witch company, a cat or a toad or a crow.

Definitions of familiar

1adjectivefamiliarKnown to you already, from having met it many times before.B1~65%
“The street looked familiar, though she had not walked it for years.”
synonyms: well-known, recognisable
2adjectivegoodHaving a good working knowledge of something. Always with with.B1~29%
“Anyone familiar with the rules can teach the game in ten minutes.”
3adjectivefriendlierFriendlier than the relationship allows.C1~2%
“The new manager was a little too familiar with everyone on the first day.”
4nounstoriesIn old stories, the animal that serves and accompanies a witch.C1~4%
“The witch sends her familiar out across the fields at night.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 128 sentences found in the wild and placed 96 of them on a sense (32 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Phrases it lives in

a familiar face — someone you recognise, even if you cannot name them
on familiar terms — knowing someone well enough to be relaxed with them

Where it comes from

Latin familiāris meant belonging to the household — the servants, the people always about the place. What is familiar is what lives in your house. Family and familial are the same word, and English had a word of its own for it, hīwcūþ, before the Latin one pushed it out.

Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeh₁-
Latin
familiāris — pertaining to servants; pertaining to the household
Middle English
familiar,familier
English, today
familiar

From Middle English familiar,familier, from Latin familiāris (“pertaining to servants; pertaining to the household”). by surface analysis, family + -ar. familial. Displaced native Old English hīwcūþ.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Everyday Adjectives, Sharper Adjectives, Myths & Legends, Fairy Tales & Folklore

Practise this word

familiar in the wild

The main purpose of familiars was to serve the witch, providing protection for them as they came into their new powers.
Familiar
Many familiar vectors, such as mosquitos, ticks, and certain flies rely on blood-feeding and can acquire or pass on pathogens during that process.
Disease vector
An example would be the concept of genetics, which is familiar to most adults in the 21st century, but at the level of a layperson.
Folk science
The coauthors became familiar with each other through mutual work at The Learning Annex, and The Art of the Deal.
Midas Touch (book)
Instead, each author is paired with a guest host who is familiar with the author or the subject matter of their book.
List of After Words interviews first aired in 2008

1 / 4

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the familiāris family

familiar

familiar — used about once every 96 pages · #984 · point at the bar for the others

Definitions of familiar

1adjectivefamiliarKnown to you already, from having met it many times before.B1~65%

“The street looked familiar, though she had not walked it for years.”

synonyms: well-known, recognisable

2adjectivegoodHaving a good working knowledge of something. Always with with.B1~29%

“Anyone familiar with the rules can teach the game in ten minutes.”

3adjectivefriendlierFriendlier than the relationship allows.C1~2%

“The new manager was a little too familiar with everyone on the first day.”

4nounstoriesIn old stories, the animal that serves and accompanies a witch.C1~4%

“The witch sends her familiar out across the fields at night.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 128 sentences found in the wild and placed 96 of them on a sense (32 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.