FAMILIARITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does familiarity mean? 

• FAMILIARITY (noun)
  The noun FAMILIARITY has 5 senses:

1. personal knowledge or information about someone or something

2. usualness by virtue of being familiar or well known

3. close or warm friendship

4. a casual manner

5. an act of undue intimacy

  Familiarity information: FAMILIARITY used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FAMILIARITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Personal knowledge or information about someone or something

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

acquaintance; conversance; conversancy; familiarity

Hypernyms ("familiarity" is a kind of...):

information (knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction)

Derivation:

familiar (having mutual interests or affections; of established friendship)

familiar ((usually followed by 'with') well informed about or knowing thoroughly)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Usualness by virtue of being familiar or well known

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("familiarity" is a kind of...):

usualness (commonness by virtue of not being unusual)

Attribute:

familiar (well known or easily recognized)

unfamiliar (not known or well known)

Antonym:

unfamiliarity (unusualness as a consequence of not being well known)

Derivation:

familiar (well known or easily recognized)

familiar (within normal everyday experience; common and ordinary; not strange)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Close or warm friendship

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

closeness; familiarity; intimacy

Context example:

the absence of fences created a mysterious intimacy in which no one knew privacy

Hypernyms ("familiarity" is a kind of...):

friendliness (a friendly disposition)

Derivation:

familiar (having mutual interests or affections; of established friendship)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A casual manner

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

casualness; familiarity

Hypernyms ("familiarity" is a kind of...):

informality (a manner that does not take forms and ceremonies seriously)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "familiarity"):

slanginess (casualness in use of language)

Sense 5

Meaning:

An act of undue intimacy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

familiarity; impropriety; indecorum; liberty

Hypernyms ("familiarity" is a kind of...):

misbehavior; misbehaviour; misdeed (improper or wicked or immoral behavior)

 Context examples 

Every thing was too recent for gaiety, but the evening passed tranquilly away; there was no longer anything material to be dreaded, and the comfort of ease and familiarity would come in time.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

As to the waiter's familiarity, it was quenched as if it had never been.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As they circled about, snarling, ears laid back, keenly watchful for the advantage, the scene came to Buck with a sense of familiarity.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

He slapped the German upon the shoulder with a rough familiarity from which the other winced.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I know no harm of Charles Maddox; but the excessive intimacy which must spring from his being admitted among us in this manner is highly objectionable, the more than intimacy—the familiarity.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

On the other hand, there was something about him that prevented great familiarity.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

In some surprise at the familiarity of this question, or at least of the manner in which it was spoken, Elinor replied that she was.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Among these the ladies choose their gallants: but the vexation is, that they act with too much ease and security; for the husband is always so rapt in speculation, that the mistress and lover may proceed to the greatest familiarities before his face, if he be but provided with paper and implements, and without his flapper at his side.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Guest had often been on business to the doctor’s; he knew Poole; he could scarce have failed to hear of Mr. Hyde’s familiarity about the house; he might draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, that he should see a letter which put that mystery to right? and above all since Guest, being a great student and critic of handwriting, would consider the step natural and obliging?

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

These powers received due admiration from Catherine, to whom they were entirely new; and the respect which they naturally inspired might have been too great for familiarity, had not the easy gaiety of Miss Thorpe's manners, and her frequent expressions of delight on this acquaintance with her, softened down every feeling of awe, and left nothing but tender affection.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)