Word.ws English Dictionary

nodding acquaintances

nodding acquaintances is the plural of nodding acquaintance.

Meaning of nodding acquaintance

Noun

nodding acquaintance (plural nodding acquaintances)

  1. (idiomatic, usually) A casual or partial familiarity; a relationship which is not close or fully developed; an inexact understanding (of something).
    • None of the quarrymen were intimate friends of mine. I had a nodding acquaintance with them.1857, Wilkie Collins, chapter 5, in The Queen of Hearts
  2. (idiomatic) Someone who is a remote or passing acquaintance.
    • [T]o reach Cattewater I must either fetch a circuit through purlieus where every householder knew me and every urchin was a nodding acquaintance, or make a straight dash.1903, Arthur Quiller-Couch, chapter 8, in The Adventures of Harry Revel

Questions about nodding acquaintances

What is nodding acquaintances the plural of?
Nodding acquaintances is the plural of nodding acquaintance.

Words near nodding acquaintances in the dictionary

  1. noddify
  2. noddifying
  3. noddin'
  4. nodding
  5. nodding acquaintance
  6. nodding acquaintances
  7. nodding blue lilies
  8. nodding blue lily
  9. nodding disease
  10. nodding donkey
  11. nodding donkeys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nodding acquaintances (page history and authors); nodding 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.

Last updated:

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