familiarity

Noun

familiarity (countable and uncountable, plural familiarities)

1. The state of being extremely friendly; intimacy.
   • 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
   • 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 2
2. Undue 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
3. An 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
4. Close or habitual acquaintance with someone or something; understanding or recognition acquired from experience.
   • 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.1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Influence of the Dead”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 269