Word.ws English Dictionary

acquaintaunce

acquaintaunce is the obsolete form of acquaintance.

Meaning of acquaintance

Noun

acquaintance (countable and uncountable, plural acquaintances)

  1. (uncountable) A state of being acquainted with a person; originally indicating friendship, intimacy, but now suggesting a slight knowledge less deep than that of friendship; acquaintanceship.
    • I know of the man; but have no acquaintance with him.
  2. (countable) A person or persons with whom one is acquainted.
    • Montgomery was an old acquaintance of Ferguson.1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XVI, in The History Of England From the Accession of James II
  3. (uncountable) Such people collectively; one's circle of acquaintances (with plural concord).
    • Having therefore conſulted with my Wife, and ſome of my Acquaintance, I determined to go again to Sea.1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Gives Some Account of Himself and Family, His First Inducements to Travel. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s...
  4. Personal knowledge (with a specific subject etc.).
    • The words of these songs were either without meaning, or derived from an idiom with which Watt, a very fair linguist, had no acquaintance.1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC

Forms of acquaintaunce

pluralacquaintaunces

Questions about acquaintaunce

What is acquaintaunce the obsolete form of?
Acquaintaunce is the obsolete form of acquaintance.

Words near acquaintaunce in the dictionary

  1. acquaintanceship
  2. acquaintanceships
  3. acquaintancy
  4. acquaintant
  5. acquaintants
  6. acquaintaunce
  7. acquaintaunces
  8. acquainted
  9. acquaintedness
  10. acquaintence
  11. acquaintest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: acquaintaunce (page history and authors); acquaintance (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “acquaintaunce.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/acquaintaunce. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.