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Acquaintance   Listen
noun
Acquaintance  n.  
1.
A state of being acquainted, or of having intimate, or more than slight or superficial, knowledge; personal knowledge gained by intercourse short of that of friendship or intimacy; as, I know the man; but have no acquaintance with him. "Contract no friendship, or even acquaintance, with a guileful man."
2.
A person or persons with whom one is acquainted. "Montgomery was an old acquaintance of Ferguson." Note: In this sense the collective term acquaintance was formerly both singular and plural, but it is now commonly singular, and has the regular plural acquaintances.
To be of acquaintance, to be intimate.
To take acquaintance of or To take acquaintance with, to make the acquaintance of. (Obs.)
Synonyms: Familiarity; intimacy; fellowship; knowledge. Acquaintance, Familiarity, Intimacy. These words mark different degrees of closeness in social intercourse. Acquaintance arises from occasional intercourse; as, our acquaintance has been a brief one. We can speak of a slight or an intimate acquaintance. Familiarity is the result of continued acquaintance. It springs from persons being frequently together, so as to wear off all restraint and reserve; as, the familiarity of old companions. Intimacy is the result of close connection, and the freest interchange of thought; as, the intimacy of established friendship. "Our admiration of a famous man lessens upon our nearer acquaintance with him." "We contract at last such a familiarity with them as makes it difficult and irksome for us to call off our minds." "It is in our power to confine our friendships and intimacies to men of virtue."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Acquaintance" Quotes from Famous Books



... Heine renewed and deepened acquaintance with his beloved North Sea, not very resolute attempts to take up the practice of law in Hamburg, a trip to London, vain hopes of a professorship in Munich, a sojourn in Italy, vacillations between Hamburg, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... heart that speaks," he said, and then he turned to Colonel Harley, who was claiming the attention of an old acquaintance. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... and prepossessing manners. He was owned by David B. Turner, Esq., a dry goods merchant of New York. By birth, Turner was a Virginian, and a regular slave-holder. His slaves were kept hired out by the year. As Jack had had but slight acquaintance with his New York owner, he says but very little about him. He was moved to leave simply because he had got tired of working for the "white people for nothing." Fled from Richmond, Va. Jack went ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... never have kept cats, you have missed lots of fun, you are not half educated, you have not been disciplined at all. / A cat is a wonderful animal, but he is not a bit like what, on first making his acquaintance, you think he is going to be, and he never ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... two, exchanged a few words with the boatmen on the beach, looked about in the hopes of meeting an acquaintance, and resumed his seat on a ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... crowd on the heritage proud which by Greece is bequeathed to the nations (You can gain in a week an acquaintance with Greek by a liberal use of translations), And the names that you quote with the aid of your "Grote" and a noble assumption of choler, Will attest that you feel that excusable zeal which belongs to an ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... determinations. I began to demand in the intellectual slang of the time "more actuality," and to amaze my father with talk about empire makers and the greatness of Lord Strathcona and Cecil Rhodes. Why, I asked, shouldn't I travel for a year in search of opportunity? At Oxford I had made acquaintance with a son of Pramley's, the big Mexican and Borneo man, and to him I wrote, apropos of a half-forgotten midnight talk in the rooms of some common friend. He wrote back with the suggestion that I should go and talk to his father, and I tore myself away ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... in the vintage. But the Sardes of all ranks are determined sportsmen, cacciatori, and we did not despair, though hunting excursions in the island require, as we shall find, a certain organisation. In our dilemma we made the acquaintance—of all people in the world—of a little barber, who appeared deeply versed in the politics of the place, and undertook to arrange the desired chasse with the Tempiese hunters. We were to meet him the same evening, at a low caffè, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... know anything about the members," Ruth said. "I don't think I have a personal acquaintance with twenty of them—a calling acquaintance, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... jist the gintleman that I'd like to make an acquaintance with, as me mither said when me father ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... were bettered and improved, and when she had never seen the king before, she still did not remember to his disadvantage that he had condemned her sort of learning, and did not refuse him as a stranger, and one that she had had no acquaintance with; but she had compassion upon him, and comforted him, and exhorted him to do what he was greatly averse to, and offered him the only creature she had, as a poor woman, and that earnestly, and with great humanity, while ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... good people to sing while he should count the funds. On completing the count, he found a deficiency, and concluded to carry the hat again. He started and moved leisurely along, taking special pains to afford all an opportunity to contribute, until he came to the dear man, whose acquaintance I had made the night before. He now paused, placed the hat on the desk, under the face of the reputed miser, put his hands in his pockets, and looked unconcernedly over the congregation, remarking, "Well, brethren, there is no great hurry about this matter. If you have not got the money with ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... good fellow, where is Mr. Oxenham?" asked Sir Richard, rising. "You are somewhat over-hasty in welcoming your old acquaintance, Amyas, before we have heard from him whether he can give honest account of himself and of his captain. For there is more than one way by which sailors may come home without their captains, as poor Mr. Barker of Bristol found to his cost. God grant that there may have been no ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... which he (Nodot) possessed, and which came into his hands in the following manner: one Du Pin, a French officer detailed to service with Austria, had been present at the sack of Belgrade in 1688. That this Du Pin had, while there, made the acquaintance of a certain Greek renegade, having, as a matter of fact, stayed in the house of this renegade. The Greek's father, a man of some learning, had by some means come into possession of the MS., and Du Pin, in going through some of the books in ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... much. Who was the old man? Was he mad? His eyes scanned the little room and an exclamation of astonishment fell from his lips when he saw the leather bag, partly filled with gold, lying where his mysterious acquaintance had dropped it. Surely this was madness or else another ruse to test his honesty. The discovery thrilled him. It was wonderfully quiet out in that next room and very dark. Were hidden eyes guarding that bag? Well, if so, he would give their owner ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... which in every-day life we are beset, to the conversation of a person of intelligence who has visited foreign lands, and can give to the inquisitive at home a portion of the new ideas, images, and recollections with which his mind is stored. How, then, has it happened, that the same acquaintance with foreign and distant countries, which is universally felt to be such an advantage in conversation, is attended with such opposite effects in literature; and that, while our travellers are often the most ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... Barbarians, which issued from the North, would soon be encountered from the South by new swarms of Barbarians, equally fierce and equally formidable. These gloomy terrors would indeed have been dispelled by a more intimate acquaintance with the character of their African enemies. The inaction of the negroes does not seem to be the effect either of their virtue or of their pusillanimity. They indulge, like the rest of mankind, their passions and appetites; and the adjacent tribes are engaged ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... object was to make the acquaintance of some of the fishermen, and to find out what vessels were engaged in smuggling goods across to England; for it was in one of these alone that he could hope to cross the Channel. This, however, he found much more ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... said as she turned away, and he was glad again to feel that she had conquered him. To be conquered by one's own blood was different from being conquered by a business acquaintance. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... Authors of the Monthy Review, as to critics of acknowledged merit; an acquaintance with whose labours has afforded the writer of this Epistle a reason for directing it to them in particular, and, he presumes, will yield to others a just and sufficient plea for ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe

... succeed in his profession. Having come to this conclusion, which did more credit to his head than to his heart, Cargrim sought out the servant who had summoned the bishop to see the stranger. A full acquaintance with the circumstances of the visit was necessary to the development of the Reverend ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... however, that she accepts the geranium in such a manner that you are encouraged to continue the acquaintance. Your next move should be a request for an invitation to call upon her at her home. This should, above all things, not be done crudely. It is better merely to suggest your wish by some indirect method such ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart

... will "promote harmony and good feeling, where it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage frequent intercourse, and soften prejudices by increasing acquaintance, and tend to peace and union and good-will." "It will work no injury to the State [Massachusetts], by violating any public law of the State. The only law in the statute-book applicable to the subject of Slavery is the law against kidnapping." "It will work no direct injury to the ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... purpose than those in that State. Mr. Peet has made some remarks on their probable use that seem to us to cover the ground, and to do away with any necessity of supposing on the part of its builders an acquaintance with Old World mythologies. Nature worship is one of the earliest forms of worship. The prominent features of a landscape would be regarded as objects of worship. Thus, for example, the island of Mackinac resembles in its outline the shape ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... extensive acquaintance at the North; and I can truly say, that I do not know a white abolitionist, who is the reputed father of a colored child. At the South there are several hundred thousand persons, whose yellow skins testify, that the white man's blood courses through their veins. Whether the honorable ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... possibly—she was one of the greatest works of God. Your note about the resemblance of her verses to mine gave me great joy, though it only proved me a plagiarist. By the by, was it not over The Child's Garden of Verses that we first scraped acquaintance? I am sorry indeed to hear that my esteemed correspondent Tomarcher has such poor taste in literature.[75] I fear he cannot have inherited this trait from his dear papa. Indeed, I may say I know it, for I remember ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... up the valley through a narrow avenue of poplar-trees to the town of Tirano. We were now in the district where Forzato is made, and every vineyard had a name and history. In Tirano we betook ourself to the house of an old acquaintance of the Buol family, Bernardo da Campo, or, as the Graubuendeners call him, Bernard Campbell. We found him at dinner with his son and grandchildren in a vast, dark, bare Italian chamber. It would be difficult to find a more typical old Scotchman ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... acquaintance, uncle, is not overburdened with politeness, it seems to me. He does not respond ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... is to the intelligence; that of L'Aiglon, so obviously pathetic in his own eyes, is rather to the heart. Indeed the intelligence of the audience is here often in trouble; for a certain acquaintance with history is required and both actors and stage-management offer little aid to the average ignorance. While the more obvious and melodramatic situations—such as the death of L'Aiglon or the business of the sentry—are treated at great leisure, it is assumed that all historical ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various

... aim ought to be to give boys a personal interest in such problems, and put them in personal touch with them. But the Eton Mission was planted in a district which it was very hard to reach from Eton, so that few of the boys were ever able to make a personal acquaintance with the hard and bare conditions of life in the crowded industrial region which their Mission was doing so much to help and uplift, or to realise the urgency of the needs of a district which most of them had ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... realising that I was on the point of saying something that might easily be construed as offensive. "It will give me great pleasure to make the acquaintance of your queen," I continued; "for a woman who possesses such an extraordinary gift of knowledge must be very well worth knowing. There are one or two matters upon which I am badly in need ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... read the Bible as if he really believed it to be the Word of God, and acted in accordance with its precepts with a degree of bold simplicity and trustfulness, that made him a laughing-stock to some, and a subject of surprise and admiration to others, of his companions and acquaintance. In short, he was a Christian of a cheerful, ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... with this gentleman again, all further business being officially transacted through the officers of our legation. Yet I can truly say, as I have said of my first meeting with our matchless band of missionary workers, that here commenced an acquaintance which proved invaluable, and here were given pledges of mutual faith, of which not a word was ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... have been torn to pieces between them, but for the timely approach of a person who issued from a lofty and handsome edifice on the road side, attended by a train of preacher-monkeys, of which he was the chief. He was quite a superior looking being to either of my first acquaintance, who cowered and shrunk beneath his eagle look. They seemed humbly to lay their cases before him; when, after looking contemptuously on both, he took me to himself, caressed me, and giving me to an attendant, said—"This bird belongs ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various

... the same deep sense in which it is employed all but uniformly in the New Testament—the same sense in which it is used in the writings of the Apostle John. It describes a knowledge which is a great deal more than a mere intellectual acquaintance with the facts of divine revelation. Or, to put the thought into other words, this is a knowledge which comes after we have set our love upon God, a knowledge which is the child of love. We forget sometimes that it is a Person, and not a system of truth, whom the Bible tells us we are ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... the west now; and across the glowing sky he noted a thread of smoke. Within a few minutes it had been his guide to an Indian tepee—a solitary tepee in this lone and little-known canyon of the Yellowbank—and entering, he recognized an old acquaintance. After sitting and smoking, he told of his troubles and asked the Red man to come and help get the wagon out ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... cried Bess, raising her eyebrows; "not a bit of it. The more I say against her—in a sweet way, of course—the more they are determined to form her acquaintance." ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... boys. The youngest of the two had a tiny toy-ship in his hand. After looking at Magdalen for a little while with the quaintest gravity and attention, the boy suddenly approached her, and opened the way to an acquaintance by putting his ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... witness it; three full rehearsals were absolutely necessary; and two characters in the play were not filled yet. With this lamentable story, and with the humblest apologies for presuming on a slight acquaintance, the Marrables appeared at Combe-Raven, to appeal to the young ladies for a "Lucy," and to the universe for a "Falkland," with the mendicant pertinacity of a ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... Knowledge.— N. knowledge; cognizance, cognition, cognoscence|; acquaintance, experience, ken, privity[obs3], insight, familiarity; comprehension, apprehension; recognition; appreciation &c. (judgment) 480; intuition; conscience, consciousness; perception, precognition; acroamatics|!. light, enlightenment; glimpse, inkling; glimmer, glimmering; dawn; scent, suspicion; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... "I renews my acquaintance with him, an' he tells how he gets outen the Canadian that day; but beyond that we consoomes a drink or two together, I rather passes him up. Thar's a heap about him I don't ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... by the dialogue, that the characters I here introduce are the antipodes of each other. They had both been pupils in the same school, and in after life, being engaged as grocers, they frequently met and renewed their acquaintance. They were both established in business, having passed the threshold of that important event, "Setting out in life." As far as their outward life was concerned, they were acquaintances; but to each other's inner ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... which required an alteration, he discovered a prodigious treasure that had been concealed there by his father! With that generosity and nobleness of character, which make him esteemed and beloved by all his acquaintance, and adored by the whole commune over which he presides, he instantly sent for his sisters and divided it with them. His wife did not long survive this last event, and since her death he has continued to reside at Fontenay-aux-Roses with his sisters, where he exercises his authority with ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes

... he made the acquaintance of the Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal Noailles. It is marvellous how broad in his views the young man was. As he discussed the nature of true religion with the Cardinal, who tried in vain to win him for the Church of Rome, he came to the conclusion that the ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... In Tiflis he worked in the railway shops, and in 1892 printed his first literary effort, "Makar Tchudra," in a local newspaper, the "Kavkaz." In the following year, in Nizhni Novgorod, he made acquaintance with Korolenko, to whom he is indebted for getting into "great literature," and for sympathy and advice. When he published "Tchelkash," in 1893, his fate was settled. It is regarded as one of the purest gems of Russian literature. He immediately rose to honor, and all his writings ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... and the innovation, if it scandalized some of his townsmen, permitted him to develop his talent more freely. In his twentieth year he matriculated at the university of Seville, but his career as a student was undistinguished. In Seville he made acquaintance with Garcia Gutierrez, who is reported to have encouraged his dramatic ambitions and to have given him the benefit of his own experience as a playwright. Early in 1850 Ayala removed his name from the university ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... unfortunate that our acquaintance has begun so unfavorably," I remarked, preparing to pass him. "Under other circumstances we might ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... careful not to know their neighbours, though half the ponies on the ground were anxious to scrape acquaintance with the little fellows that had come from the North, and, so far, had swept ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... me," said Mrs. Puff-Pudgy, "for my little darlings are anxious to make your acquaintance, and as I was the first to discover you, you are to be my guests first of all, and afterward go to the ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

... sunshine in order to germinate; and especially in the Latin nation, which was but little susceptible of poetic impulses, they needed external nurture. Nor let it be said, that, by virtue of the widely diffused acquaintance with the Greek language, its literature would have sufficed for the susceptible Roman public. The mysterious charm which language exercises over man, and which poetical language and rhythm only enhance, attaches not to any tongue learned accidentally, but only to the mother-tongue. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... breath. And," he went on directly to remark, with a combination of candour and seriousness that were in themselves irresistibly ludicrous, "advantage may be taken of the circumstance to state that a fearful mystery surrounded this lady of the name of Harris, whom no one in the circle of Mrs. Gamp's acquaintance had ever seen; neither did any human being know her place of residence—the prevalent opinion being that she was a phantom of Mrs. Gamp's brain, created for the purpose of holding complimentary dialogues with her on all manner of subjects." Eminently seasonable, as a preliminary flourish ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... the Bible, eh? well, I believe you are the only little girl of my acquaintance who thinks that the most beautiful and interesting book in the world. But, let me see, what is this 'Pilgrim's Progress' about? some foolish story of a man with a great load on ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley

... Reformation in Germany thrust aside speculative Mysticism with impatience. Nor did Christian Platonism fare much better in the Latin countries. There were students of Plotinus in Italy in the sixteenth century, who fancied that a revival of humane letters, and a better acquaintance with philosophy, were the best means of combating the barbaric enthusiasms of the North. But these Italian Neoplatonists had, for the most part, no deep religious feelings, and they did not exhibit in their lives that severity which the Alexandrian philosophers had practised. ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... sure, to see you on board and make your acquaintance," said the pleasant-faced young officer, turning to me in a nice cordial way that increased the liking I had already taken to him at first sight. "Have you got your traps with you all right, ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... black and white rascal!" he exclaimed. "I suppose you expect me to step out of your way, and I suppose I will do just that very thing. You are the most impudent and independent fellow of my acquaintance. That's what you are. You didn't get any eggs, because I gathered all of them last night. And you didn't get a chicken because they were wise enough to stay on their roosts, so I don't know as I have any quarrel with you, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess

... fine-looking man of thirty or a year or two above. Among the guests Mr Darrell indicated several whose names were known to me, such as the witty Lord Rochester and the French Ambassador, M. de Cominges, a very stately gentleman. These, however, being at the other end of the table, I made no acquaintance with them, and contented myself with listening to the conversation of my neighbours, putting in a word where I seemed able with propriety and without displaying an ignorance of which I was very sensible. It seemed to me that Lord Carford, to whom I had not been formally ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... ground, and said to me kneeling, "Dear lady, excuse the freedom I take to trouble you, the confidence I have in your charity makes me thus bold. I must acquaint your ladyship that I have an orphan daughter, who is to be married this day. She and I are both strangers, and have no acquaintance in this town; which much perplexes me, for we wish the numerous family with whom we are going to ally ourselves to think we are not altogether unknown and without credit: therefore, most beautiful ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... Disarming the Tories ever Since we Have Been Here. Have collected upwards of two Hundred Muskits with ammunition &c. We was two nights at Jamaica where I had to take Jonathan Rowland an own uncle to Roberts wife. Likewise Saml Doughty an acquaintance of Roberts. Charles Jackson is well and Desires to Be Remembered to his fammily and I Request of you to Show his wife this Letter. I ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... upon no other Pretence in Nature but that (as her silly Phrase is) no one can say Black is her Eye. She has no Secrets, forsooth, which should make her afraid to speak her Mind, and therefore she is impertinently Blunt to all her Acquaintance, and unseasonably Imperious to all her Family. Dear Sir, be pleased to put such Books in our Hands, as may make our Virtue more inward, and convince some of us that in a Mind truly virtuous the Scorn of Vice is always accompanied with the Pity of it. This and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... immersion, so that Ralph scrambled hastily out of it, and after a rub with a harsh towel, put on his clothes; then he noticed that the door of the stranger's cubicle was open; he looked into it to say good-by to his chance acquaintance, but it was empty, and in the corner he saw the Malacca cane with the gold head. He picked it up and carefully examined it; the head was of gold in the form of a face, eyes wide open, spectacles turned up ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... camp-fire. Much of the information here given was furnished by Hans, who of course had gathered it from books; but the Bushman contributed his quota—perhaps of a far more reliable character. All were destined ere long to make practical acquaintance with the haunts and habits of this huge quadruped, that to them had now become the most interesting of all the ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... the Boy hurried after Maudie. It was some minutes before they caught up. The Boy, feeling that he couldn't be stand-offish in the very act of profiting by her acquaintance, began to tell her about the crippled but undaunted Swede. She made no answer, just trotted steadily on. The Boy hazarded another remark—an opinion that she was making uncommon ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... desperate man in you, my dear Mr. Thorp, shall we drink to our better acquaintance?" I ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... He was always prowling about the East Side in search of sociological prey, and the modest little woman with her intelligent and determined face attracted him strongly. They fell into easy conversation near a cage of canaries, and the acquaintance soon bloomed into a friendship. A week after the raid on Schwab's, Arthur, very haggard and nervous, wandered into Koschinsky's. The old ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... I have had very slight acquaintance with the children of Israel. I shared more or less the prevailing prejudices against the persecuted race. I used to read in my hymn-book,—I hope ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... beast. Presently Mephistopheles emerges from his canine disguise in the costume of a wandering scholar. Faust is amused. He enters into conversation with his guest and learns something of his character. A familiar acquaintance ensues, and one day the Devil finds him once more in a mood of bitter despair, advises him to quit the tedious professorial life, and offers to be his comrade and servant on a grand tour of pleasure. After some bickering they enter into ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... duty to prepare the music for the men, making the abridgments, emendations, and rearrangements that might be advisable to adapt old music to the then modern orchestra. In this way he gained, no doubt, much of his marvelous acquaintance with orchestral effect. When he was fifteen he was regularly appointed organist to the private chapel of the Elector, and he was left in charge of the orchestra for months together in the absence of ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews

... Sylla Chipchase seated in one of the corners, and apparently engaged in a tolerably pronounced flirtation. Now, in the confusion of the greeting between the Grange party and the rectory people, it had quite escaped Lady Mary that Lionel Beauchamp shook hands like an old acquaintance with Sylla. She had, therefore, no idea that they had met before this evening, and her dismay at finding Mr. Beauchamp improving his opportunities with Miss Sylla, when she had pictured him similarly engaged with Blanche, ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... which knows no weariness, which needs no repose, which has no necessity of dying impressed upon it. And such a body Scripture plainly tells us will belong to those who are Christ's, at His coming. Our present acquaintance with the conditions of life makes that great promise seem impossible to many learned men amongst us. And I know not that anything but acquaintance with the sure word of God and with a risen Lord will make that seeming impossibility again a great promise ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... administration of pills and draughts. Further, like our own agricultural classes, they have no faith in medicine of any kind which does not make its presence felt not only quickly but powerfully. This last desire was amply fulfilled in the case of one poor coolie who applied to an acquaintance of ours for some foreign medicine to cure a sick headache and bilious attack from which he was suffering. Our friend immediately bethought himself of a Seidlitz powder; but when all was ready, the acid in one wine-glass of water ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... the club, the big building was swarming with men of his acquaintance, yet he seemed curiously apart from them. Since his father's murder and the death of his mother, he had proceeded under what engineers call "forced draught." His nerves, like iron, had been drawn tight—to the snapping point: only some ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... problem of an introduction when there is no mutual acquaintance is sometimes perplexing. But the young man, having had the good taste to purchase a copy of PERFECT BEHAVIOR, is having no difficulty. He has fastened a rope across the sidewalk in front of the lady's house and, with the aid of a match and some kerosene, has ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart

... acquaintance in that case with one of the most insupportable women that ever lived. I strongly recommend you to keep out of her way. She wears my life out with her querulous temper and tiresome complaints; and as I do not want to go through a scene ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... in any part of the world. The second mate, who shipped also at Rosario, was not less ill-visaged, and had, in addition to his natural ugly features, a deep scar across his face, suggestive of a heavy sabre stroke; a mark which, I thought upon further acquaintance, he had probably merited. I could not make myself easy upon the first acquaintance of my new and decidedly ill-featured crew. So, early the first evening I brought the bark to anchor, and made all snug before dark for prudent reasons. Next morning, the ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... distinctly flattered, for he found their new acquaintance charming. His mother was still a little doubtful, and Kitty was sure she found the ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... taking into account the circumstance that the reading public is not entirely composed of physicists and chemists. It has been too much the fashion for writers on scientific subjects to give definitions which can be rendered intelligible only by an intimate acquaintance with the very matters defined. It would be tedious to enumerate the countless absurd explanations given in elementary text-books of the phenomena of interference, polarization, and double refraction,—explanations as enigmatical as the inscriptions at Memphis ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of saints are really true? Nevertheless the friends are not dead, though expelled from the heaven of the Church. They still live in romance; and everybody who reads about them feels a little better for their acquaintance. ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... him to your home. He tarries a little while, and is gone. You say to your wife, "Well, what do you think of him?" She says, "I don't like him at all." You say, "It's an absurd thing to form a prejudice against him on so short an acquaintance. I have known him for years, and I have never known any bad against him." "Well," she says, "I don't know why I have formed that opinion, but I tell you to beware. Put none of your financial interests in that man's keeping." Ten or fifteen years ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... young Spotswood had been exactly true. He had become fascinated with her during their first interview, and had followed up the acquaintance with ardor, making her very soon ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... which has engaged us in an imaginary acquaintance with the intelligent stranger, we beg he will accept a friendly adieu: and a wish, that as he quits the town thro' which we have conducted him, and which we have endeavoured to represent in a view not unworthy the attention ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts

... was concerned in some important cases in his time—but he rarely, if ever, mentioned them to me. In fact, I may say, gentlemen," he continued in a palpable burst of confidence, "I may say, between ourselves, that I'd had the honour of Mr. K.'s acquaintance for some time before ever I knew what his line of ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher

... is of importance is that the editor of a paper like yours should appear to countenance the monstrous theory that the Government of a country should exercise a censorship over imaginative literature. This is a theory against which I, and all men of letters of my acquaintance, protest most strongly; and any critic who admits the reasonableness of such a theory shows at once that he is quite incapable of understanding what literature is, and what are the rights that literature possesses. ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... affiliated literature, the Mabinogeon is spread before us. To the antiquarian and the student of language and ethnology an invaluable treasure, it yet can hardly in such a form win its way to popular acquaintance. We claim no other merit than that of bringing it to the knowledge of our readers, of abridging its details, of selecting its most attractive portions, and of faithfully preserving throughout the style in which Lady Guest has ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... representatives in the Hungarian Parliament were afraid I should introduce that policy in Roumania, which, following the spirit of the pamphlet, was directed against the official policy of Vienna and Budapest. It was at this period that I made Tisza's acquaintance. I had a long and very frank conversation with him on the whole subject, and explained to him that I must uphold the standpoint I put forward in my pamphlet, as it tallied with my convictions, but that I clearly ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... I am delighted to make your acquaintance. (He seizes his hand and grips it heartily.) ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne

... king said to himself, "All the queens of my acquaintance have children, some three, some seven, and some as many as twelve; and my queen has not one. I feel ill-used." So he made up his mind to be cross with his wife about it. But she bore it all like a ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... pointed out to her by her room-mate, and recognised him as a young man she had often seen at the house. Now immediately she looked upon him with tenderness, and received his advances to acquaintance with such kindness that he conceived high hopes and went about with his chest swelling with pride. But all the time he was talking to her, or at her, rather, with the other girls, her heart was calling to him, "Do not marry me, do not, do not——" which he, unfortunately, ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett

... she owe her education? What had occurred in her life down to the day when he first came to her house? Her latest avowal was a bar to these questions. All he asked her was how she had made Arnoux's acquaintance. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... ten minutes," said Signor Currie, consulting his watch. Then he and the Mayor moved a little aside and began talking together, leaving the little girls to make acquaintance. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... spot on earth where one is so well known by his neighbors as at Paris, it was not long before people of my acquaintance who had seen me with Desgenais began to accuse me of being a great libertine. In that I admired the discernment of the world: in proportion as I had passed for inexperienced and sensitive at the time of my rupture with my mistress, I was now considered insensible and hardened. Some ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... by a drunken hand, to a man whose love is like the hills? And yet that kiss, wafted so amorously to Virginia, stirred up a rage in Wiley Holman's heart. Was it not enough to wait on the table, without cultivating the acquaintance of her boarders? And this foolish affair, whatever it was, had cost him at least ten thousand dollars. It would come to that before he was through with it—in lost time and new machinery and unearned ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

... too loyal to talk easily of their employer's affairs. As to the governess, she knew no more than I did, and our common interest was one of the causes which drew us together. At last, however, an incident occurred which led to a closer acquaintance with Mr. Richards and a fuller knowledge of the life of the ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... My acquaintance with Kenko began only last night, when I sat in bed reading Mr. Raymond Weaver's very pleasant article about him in a recent Bookman. My last act before turning out the light was to lay the magazine on ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... made the acquaintance of Konrad Karl early in 1913. Gorman is a man who lives comfortably, very much more comfortably than he could if he had no resources except the beggarly L400 a year which his country pays him as a reward for his popularity with the people of Upper Offaly. He makes money in various ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... Holborn. Thither Quin went, and being admitted into his chamber, "Sir," said he, "you don't know me, but my name is Quin." Thomson said, "That, though he could not boast of the honour of a personal acquaintance, he was no stranger either to his name or his merit;" and invited him to sit down. Quin then told him he was come to sup with him, and that he had already ordered the cook to provide supper, which he hoped he would excuse. When supper was over, and the ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... Isaac did not profess to be a Quaker. He used the customary language of the world, and liked to display his well-proportioned figure in neat and fashionable clothing. The young women of his acquaintance, it is said, looked upon him with rather favorable eyes; but his thoughts never wandered from Sarah Tatum for a single day. Once, when he had a new suit of clothes, and stylish boots, the tops turned down with red, a young man of his ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... eyes. She toyed with her white lace parasol, and looked, as Sibyl had looked a short time ago, across the lovely summer scene; but in her eyes there shone the world with all its temptations and all its lures, and Sibyl's had made acquaintance with the stars, and the lofty peaks of high principle, and honor, and knew nothing of the ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... learn there is enough cleverness here to comprehend why you came to this plantation a willing prisoner," he said, threateningly. Monroe resumed his "Rally Once Again," and raised his brows inquiringly, "and also why you ignored a former acquaintance with Madame Caron and had to be introduced. Before you are through with this business, Captain Monroe, you'll whistle ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... comparatively safe and easy. But the fate of {p.115} T. Y. Callaghan and Joseph W. Stevens, of Trenton, N. J., who perished on the glaciers in August, 1909, should serve as a warning against over-confidence. Unless one has intimate acquaintance with the ways of the great ice peaks, he should never attack such a wilderness of crevasses and shifting snow-slopes save in company of those who ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams

... with future prospects. The town took on an air of frontier prosperity; saloons and gambling and dance halls multiplied, and every legitimate line of business flourished like a green bay tree. I made the acquaintance of every drover and was generally looked upon as an extra good salesman, the secret being in our cattle, which were choice. For instance, Northern buyers could see three dollars a head difference in three-year-old steers, but with the average ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams

... acquaintance what do you think of this by scribbling his name and address on some eggs he sold ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever

... Gerfaut?" continued Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, with the persistency with which aged people follow an idea, and as if determined to pass in review all the young men of their acquaintance until she had discovered her ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... procured not a few himself from such in his own time as were studious in antiquity: as, namely, several Saxon books from Robert Talbot,[6] a great collector of such ancient writings in King Henry the Eighth's time, and an acquaintance of Leland, Bale, etc. Some of which writings the said Talbot had from Dr. Owen,[7] the said King Henry's physician; and some our archbishop likewise had from him; as appears in one of the Cotton volumes:[8] which is made up of a collection of various charters, etc., written out by Joh. Joscelyn.[9] ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... off; therefore, when evening fell, I again commended myself to Heaven, and lay down, utterly exhausted. In the morning, as soon as I woke, I made towards the nearest of the cleared lands which I had seen the day before; and that afternoon I reached the house of John Bull, an old acquaintance. I knocked at the door, and his wife, who opened it, seeing me in such a frightful condition, flew from me like lightning, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... observation, and her sharpened motives supplied the defects of her early education. Leslie became a naturalist—the most original and untrammelled of naturalists, for she proceeded upon that foundation of anecdotal and experimental acquaintance with herb and tree, insect, bird, and beast, and even atmospheric phenomena, whose unalloyed riches are peculiar to rustic and ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... gave the Nile its name, and is in fact the real fertilizing ingredient in the mud that is annually left. Some of the rivers in Manyuema, as the Luia and Machila, are of inky blackness, and make the whole main stream of a very Nilotic hue. An acquaintance with these dark flowing rivers, and scores of rills of water tinged as dark as strong tea, was all my reward for plunging through the terrible ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... turning back. When he did speak it was to ask: "Grant, how many wolves do you think there are in that pack?" Knowing where he was from, and suspecting that he thought I would over-estimate the number, I determined to show my acquaintance with the animal by putting the estimate below what possibly could be correct, and answered: "Oh, about twenty," very indifferently. He smiled and rode on. In a minute we were close upon them, and before they saw us. There were just ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... meek manner. His little eyes blazed. His drooping mouth snarled and his yellow teeth showed defiantly. Cap'n Sproul always welcomed defiance. It was the thin man's passive resignation at the beginning of their acquaintance that caused the Cap'n to poke the ash-stick back under the stove. Now he buttoned his pea-jacket, pulled his hat down firmly, and spat first into one fist and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... one, then another. Their pushcarts were full of stones, sand, chunks of rubbery plants, and such rubbish as that. They droned out their friendly greeting, which didn't really sound so friendly, and dashed on. The third one I assumed to be my first acquaintance and I decided to have another chat with him. I stepped into his path ...
— A Martian Odyssey • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... England, although I have met with greater kindness and courtesy on the part of most than I deserved, yet, on the other hand, I perceive that the Southern influence prevails to some extent in England. (Applause and uproar.) It is my old acquaintance; I understand it perfectly-(laughter)-and I have always held it to be an unfailing truth that where a man had a cause that would bear examination he was perfectly willing to have it spoken about. (Applause.) ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... now took the stand. He gave the full history of his acquaintance with Annunziata Solara from the meeting in the Piazza del Popolo to the encounter with Vampa in the forest and the administration of the oath of silence, speaking with such evident sincerity and feeling that his testimony acquired additional weight thereby. The brigand ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... perseverance, their acute powers of reasoning, and the splendid popularity which many of the disciples of St. Dominic and St. Francis were fast acquiring, caused students to flock in crowds to their seats of learning, and all who were inspired to an acquaintance with scholastic philosophy placed themselves under ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather

... acquaintance, who got leave and put on plain clothes for the occasion, to the small Presbyterian Church in Castlebar. There were about a dozen present. Presbyterianism does not, as a rule, flourish in Mayo, though there are a good many small congregations ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... and I had come away on purpose; and for his own part it had always been the longing of his soul to see the world. Times out of mind when he and Barney were on board one of these emigrant ships, that had put into the bay, GOD-speeding an old tenant or acquaintance with good wishes and whisky and what not, he had been more than half inclined to give old Barney and the hooker the slip, and take his luck with the outward bound. And now he was here, and no blame for it, why would he hurry home? The race of the O'Moores was not likely to become extinct for ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... that Leopold seldom went out in the new boat, but did a man's work about the hotel; for as the season advanced the "help" was reduced. Miss Liverage, for some reason, seemed to be very desirous of cultivating his acquaintance, and she talked with him much more than with his father. On the second day of her stay she offered him a dollar, when he brought her a pitcher of water to drink in the parlor, which the young man was ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... the Bethany home. Before the sorrow came, Jesus was a familiar guest, a close and intimate friend of the members of the household. He always had kindly welcome and generous hospitality when he came to their door. They did not make his acquaintance for the first time when their hearts were broken. They had known him for a long time, and had listened to his gracious words when there was no grief in their home. This made it easy to turn to him and to receive his comfort when the ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... say is that there's no one I'd rather see get along than Jim. I liked him the first minute I saw him, and he sure does improve on acquaintance—the longer you know him, the more you like him. He deserves everything he gets," and Phil's face glowed with ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield



Words linked to "Acquaintance" :   mortal, stranger, friend, messmate, pickup, campmate, end man, connection, conversancy, bunkmate, someone, acquaintanceship, somebody, soul



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