intimacy

Noun

intimacy (countable and uncountable, plural intimacies)

1. Feeling or atmosphere of closeness and openness towards someone else, often but not necessarily involving sexuality.
   • To adulterous lust the most sacred duties are sacrificed, because, before marriage, men, by a promiscuous intimacy with women, learned to consider love as a selfish gratification—learned to separate it not only from esteem, but from the affection merely built on habit, which mixes a little humanity...1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC
   • The habitual liar may be a very honest fellow, and live truly with his wife and friends; while another man who never told a formal falsehood in his life may yet be himself one lie—heart and face, from top to bottom. This is the kind of lie which poisons intimacy.1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Truth of Intercourse” in Essays, English and American, The Harvard Classics, Volume 28, edited by Charles W. Eliot, New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1910, p. 287
2. (countable) Intimate relationship.
   • I have formed many intimacies and friendships here, but I am afraid they are all of too tender a construction to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles.1787, Robert Burns, Letter to Dr. Moore, 23 April, 1787, in J. Logie Robertson (ed.), The Letters of Robert Burns, Selected and Arranged, with an Introduction, London: Walter Scott, 1887, p. 57
   • “I have always thought it a very foolish intimacy,” said Mr. Knightley presently, “though I have kept my thoughts to myself; but I now perceive that it will be a very unfortunate one for Harriet […]”1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter 8, in Emma: […], volume I, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC
3. (countable, especially, plural) Intimate detail, (item of) intimate information.
   • He recognized the tone as the one used by friendly sisters to discuss the infirmities of their husbands. It was Shama’s plea to a sister to exchange intimacies, to show support.1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, published 2001, Part One, Chapter 4