Familiarity
noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The state of being extremely friendly; intimacy. countable, uncountable
"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."
- 2 an act of undue intimacy wordnet
- 3 Undue intimacy; inappropriate informality, impertinence. countable, uncountable
"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."
- 4 close or warm friendship wordnet
- 5 An instance of familiar behaviour. countable, uncountable
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- 6 usualness by virtue of being familiar or well known wordnet
- 7 Close or habitual acquaintance with someone or something; understanding or recognition acquired from experience. countable, uncountable
"The objects around have been seen so often, that they have at last become, as it were, unseen; their familiarity does not carry us out of ourselves, for all their associations are our own."
- 8 a casual manner wordnet
- 9 personal knowledge or information about someone or something wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"On the one hand he is kind to everyone, but on the other hand he never behaves with too much familiarity."
Etymology
From Middle French familiarité, from Latin familiāritātem. Displaced native Old English hīwcūþnes. Morphologically familiar + -ity.
Related phrases
More for "familiarity"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.