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Familiarity   /fəmˌɪljˈɛrəti/   Listen
Familiarity

noun
(pl. familiarities)
1.
Personal knowledge or information about someone or something.  Synonyms: acquaintance, conversance, conversancy.
2.
Usualness by virtue of being familiar or well known.
3.
Close or warm friendship.  Synonyms: closeness, intimacy.
4.
A casual manner.  Synonym: casualness.
5.
An act of undue intimacy.  Synonyms: impropriety, indecorum, liberty.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Familiarity" Quotes from Famous Books



... through Tourtereaux souffles a la creme. He brings letters to this and that citizen, or he is well known already, and "coloneled" familiarly by stamp-expectant waiters and the courteous master of ceremonies at the clerk's desk. He calls, on his bankers, and is received with gracious familiarity in the pleasant bank-parlor. Correspondence has made them acquainted with Colonel Beverage in the way of business: they are glad to see him in person, and will be happy to wait on him. He makes them happy in that way, for they do wait upon him satisfactorily. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... most welcome to all; he saw no reason to doubt that, and yet Elsie's manner sometimes saddened and depressed him. Not that there was ever in it anything approaching to coolness, but it lacked the old delightful familiarity, instead of which there was now a quiet reserve, a gentle dignity, that kept him at a distance, and while increasing his admiration for the fair girl, made him sigh for the old childish days when she was scarcely under more constraint ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley

... warm,' exclaimed the other, as he placed his hand, with careless familiarity, upon the cheek ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... lowest workman to act continually upon his own judgment. Thus it creates that combination of ready obedience, with intelligence, and promptitude at resource, which is the perfection of a sailor's character. Familiarity with danger gives the miner a cool and reflective intrepidity; and the old county sport of wrestling, so peculiarly a game of strength and skill, now falling into disuse, but then the daily amusement of every boy, was admirably calculated to ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... kindly feeling had sprung up amongst us, and interchanges of courtesies had made us friends. But thus it is in this roving life; and it may be best that the acquaintance thus stumbled upon remains but long enough to please, and is gone before the gloss of novelty is rubbed off,—before familiarity deadens ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... news to-day?" he inquired, as Bud drew near and intimated by a wink that he would like to see him privately. There had been a time when Mr. Riley would have resented anything like familiarity on the part of such a man as Goble, but now that he wanted to use him, he was forced to treat him with a ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... shelves and stowing the portfolios away in a massive safe hidden behind a lacquered screen. This done, he stationed himself before his master, awaiting his attention, a shape of affable placidity, intelligent, at ease; his attitude not entirely lacking a suggestion of familiarity. ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... were open to the air of the summer night, and a circle of three persons was temporarily awed into silence by his appearance. One of these was Mrs. Hudson, who was sitting at one of the windows, empty-handed save for the pocket-handkerchief in her lap, which was held with an air of familiarity with its sadder uses. Near her, on the sofa, half sitting, half lounging, in the attitude of a visitor outstaying ceremony, with one long leg flung over the other and a large foot in a clumsy boot ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... he used the word "magnets" advisedly, for it was with Professor Silliman that he at that time pursued the studies in physics, including electricity, which had so interested him while in college, and it was largely due to the familiarity with the subject which he then acquired that he was, in later years, enabled successfully to ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... Bernard was evidently more distant, and formal. There was, however, no want of politeness on his part, for he mingled with his usual grace and intelligence in the conversation, and the change was perceptible rather in the omission of old terms of familiarity, than in any manifestation of coldness. He seemed to pay the same attention, and evince a like interest with the rest, in the particulars of the adventures of Pownal, which, at the request of Mrs. Bernard, he narrated. Had a stranger, or one who saw the two young men together for ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... who made a triumphal entrance into the drawing-rooms, inspiring praise and envy with their new toilettes; her mother, a majestic lady, with a big nose and gold glasses, treated the ladies of the noblest families with familiarity; but in spite of this intimacy there was apparent around the mother and daughter the gap of somewhat disdainful affection, in which commiseration bore no small part. They were poor. The father had been a diplomat of some distinction who, at his death, left his wife no other source ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... of course I was mistaken,—I thought I heard you speak to him under the title of uncle. But that is a title we sometimes give to elderly people as a term of familiarity—there is an old fellow that works for me,—he has been a long time in our family, and we always call him ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... interrupted him, "I look upon the matter as settled, and consider you as a member of our household." He rose from his chair, and became quite gay and expansive, as if he had just received a present. A certain amiable familiarity, verging on the playful, began to show itself in all his gestures. "We shall set out in a day or two," he went on, in an easy tone. "There is nothing I love better than meeting spring in the country, although I am a busy, prosaic sort of person, tied to town... ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... heard him open his mouth except to say something kind, courteous, or good natured. Everybody bows to him, even strangers, and he bows to everybody, yet never with the slightest hint of presumption or familiarity. If the weather is fine, his jolly compliments make it seem finer; and if it is raining, the merry way in which he speaks of it is as good as a rainbow. Everybody who goes in on the 8.30 train knows the sunshine-man; it's his train. You just hurry up a little, ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden

... ingenuousness of her mind, the cleverness of her wit, and the number of her acquaintances. At almost any time upon returning home he found in his salon a senator, a deputy, a magistrate, or a general, who treated Madeleine with grave familiarity. ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... When Hannibal essayed to capture the stronghold of Saguntum, a fortified city on the eastern coast of Spain, and probably of Phoenician origin, he found himself confronted by no easy task. On account of his early residence in Spain and his familiarity with the people and the country, he had found its conquest an affair of no great difficulty for the most part, but here at Saguntum all the conditions were changed. The resistance was most stubborn, in spite ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... eagerness, and then let them fall. My father picked them up, and gravely presented them to her. She curtsied to the ground in receiving them, and presently crossed over the room, and,, brushing past Mrs. Crewe, seated herself immediately by her elbow. Mrs. Crewe, not admiring this familiarity, moved away, giving her at the same time a look of dignified distance that was ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... the wainscot, and a third time in deference to the young gentleman who was to carry on the name and family. Roturier as he was, Sir Robert was gratified by the homage which he rendered, and proceeded in a tone of gracious familiarity: "And now, Mr Glossin, my exceeding good friend, you must allow me to avail myself of your knowledge of law in our proceedings in this matter. I am not much in the habit of acting as a justice of the peace; it suits better with other gentlemen, whose domestic and family affairs require less constant ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... Familiarity with the snake breeds toleration. He is a lawless sort of creature, certainly, with too many vertebrae and no eyelids; but he is not always so horrible as he is imagined. A snake is rather a pleasant thing to handle than otherwise. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... presently he found standing dejectedly, close where it had been left, apparently anchored by the reins thrown down over its head and dragging on the ground. Curly seated himself on the ground near by and addressed his misanthropic steed in tones of easy familiarity. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... river we call on several of Igali's friends, among them the Greek priest and his motherly-looking wife, Igali being of the Greek religion. There appears to be the greatest familiarity between the priests of these Greek churches and their people, and during our brief visit the priest, languid-eyed, fat, and jolly, his equally fat and jolly wife, and Igali, caress playfully, and cut up as many antics as three kittens in ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... sweet, rare laughter! Gervase thrilled with the pulsation of it,—it beat in his ears and smote his brain with a strange echo of familiarity. ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... certain mystic banquets priests and initiates partook of this otherwise forbidden food, in the belief that they thus partook of the flesh of the goddess. Eisler and other scholars are of the opinion that it was the familiarity with this ritual gained by the Jews during the Captivity that led to the adoption of the Friday Fish-meal, already referred to, Friday being the day dedicated to the goddess and, later, to her equivalent, Venus. From the Jews ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... all attempt to embody the mind's conceptions of the Supreme Being; but Blake was far more closely allied to the ancient than to the modern world. His portraiture and poetry often remind us of the childlike familiarity—not rude in him, but utterly reverent—which was frequently, and sometimes offensively, displayed in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... countenance but not the intelligence or animation." It is quite certain that a rapid, piercing, commanding expression of eye and features was characteristic of him. During his captivity, the look in his eyes forbad all approach to familiarity. There is record of an occasion—in all probability connected with the sword incident—when he was addressed in terms that appeared to him to be wanting in respect; and the unlucky Frenchman who ventured thus far was so astonished at the ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... houris, as it were soaked and saturated in their fascinations, and not at liberty to squeeze their hands or ask them for one little lock of hair all through shop-time. Sally did not realise the force of sameness, nor the amount of contempt familiarity will breed. Perhaps the houris got tired and snappish, poor things! and used up their artificial smiles on the customers. Perhaps it had leaked out that the trying-on hands contributed only length, personally, to the loveliness of the trying-on figures. All sorts of things might have happened ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... of going near to it, for in infancy they had spoiled among its ruins, and it had become one of those familiar objects which, almost, from that very familiarity, cease to hold a place in the memories of those ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... behind his back; it seemed so jolly and venturesome, somehow, to speak of a minister like that. Only we had to be careful not to let Father and Mother hear us. Mother wouldn't even let Father call Dick "Stephen"; she said it would set a bad example of familiarity to the children. Mother is an old darling. She won't believe we're half ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... heat of August, fresh meat did not spoil but simply dried up, if cut in moderate sized pieces. This was also found to be the case with fresh beef in the mountains. We felt relieved and heartily glad when the last drove of buffalo was left behind. Familiarity with them, as with the Indians, destroyed all the poetry and romance about them. They were not a thing of beauty. An old buffalo bull with broken horns and numerous scars from a hundred fights, with woolly head and shaggy mane, ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton

... neither of them had seen what Teresa had done. He rose reluctantly to go. Feeling his little attentions gratefully, Carmina checked him with innocent familiarity as he left his chair. "I must thank you," she said, simply; "it seems hard indeed that you, who cure others, should ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... he was in the coveted seat beside her on the couch, and the fire burned low and red. They had ceased to talk of games and dances. They were talking of each other, those intimate nothings that mean a breaking down of distance and a rapidly growing familiarity. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... Eichhorn (Einletung in das alte Testament) has noticed the fact, which will be obvious, on a little reflection, to any even unlearned student of the Scriptures who can throw his memory back through a real familiarity with those records, that the Jews derived their obstinate notions of fiends and demoniacal possessions (as accounting even for bodily affections) entirely from their Chaldean captivity. Not before that great event in Jewish history, and, therefore, in consequence of that event, were the Jews inoculated ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... commission which admirably suited the tastes and spirits of my worthy St. Clair, to whom, you will have observed, I had accustomed myself to talk with the peculiar familiarity which the old French comedy establishes between master ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... where the Queen was standing and presented me to her. The Queen received me graciously and even cordially. She spoke English perfectly, and seemed perfectly familiar with my work. I had, however, a sneaking idea that Minister Egan was responsible for a good deal of the familiarity which both the King and Queen seemed to exhibit ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... walks; waited very contentedly when he was wrapped up in his own thoughts; wrapped herself up in hers; and was all ready for the talk when it came. With all this she observed that he never distinguished her by any more familiarity than Mrs. Caxton's niece and his daily neighbour at the table and in the family, might demand from a gentleman and Mrs. Caxton's friend and guest. The hills and the valleys around Plassy were very ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... island, where the next morning offered unto us fast running thirteen savages apparelled as aforesaid, and armed with bows and arrows without any fear. They brought tobacco, deer-skins, and some sodden fish. These offered themselves unto us in great familiarity, who seemed to be well-conditioned. They came more rich in copper than any before. This island is sound, and hath ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... there have been anything in my address, however unconscious of it I was, that made her fear I was ready to become intrusive? Or might it not be that, hearing of my footing with my parishioners generally, she was prepared to resent any assumption of clerical familiarity with her; and so, in my behaviour, any poor innocent "bush was supposed a bear." For I need not tell my reader that nothing was farther from my intention, even with the lowliest of my flock, than to presume upon my position as clergyman. I ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... will better bear reperusal, or surpass him in the grand merit of suggestiveness. There is much in his books that I cannot clearly understand, and passages sometimes occur that once seemed to me destitute of meaning; but I have since learned, from a greater familiarity with what he has written, to respect even his obscurities, and to have faith that there is at all times behind his words both a man and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... having its leaves starched and ironed out, and that Pegasus (so he called him) hardly looked right with his mane and tail in curl-papers. These and other such opinions I did not long strive to eradicate, attributing them rather to a defective education and senses untuned by too long familiarity with purely natural objects, than to a perverted moral sense. I was the more inclined to this leniency since sufficient evidence was not to seek, that his verses, wanting as they certainly were in classic polish and point, had somehow ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... surprise, Runyon appeared, riding away from the corral on his beautiful dun horse. He overheard the conference between Harboro and the others, and he made himself one of the group with pleasant familiarity. ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... understood. Both parties looked very amiably, however, at each other, and by degrees drew closer together, when the natives began to manifest much curiosity in reference to the costume of the sailors. Soon they became more familiar, and the truth of the proverb, that, "familiarity breeds contempt," was quickly illustrated by one of the savages seizing hold of the musket which Larry O'Hale carried. The hot blood of the ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... man lurked behind a barrier of ceremony, and he rarely showed himself unless in full dress. He could unbend in his family, but in the outer world he put on his defensive armour of stately politeness, which even for congenial minds made familiarity difficult if it effectually repelled impertinence. But beneath this sensitive nature lay an energetic and even impetuous character, and an intellect singularly clear, subtle, and decisive. His reasons were apt to be complicated, but he came to very definite results, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... name he gives is Kalli-tang-zhing. McMaster in his notes writes: "The Burmese Tupaia is a harmless little animal; in the dry season living in trees and in the monsoon freely entering our houses, and in impudent familiarity taking the place held in India by the common palm squirrel. It is, however, probably from its rat-like head and thievish expression, very unpopular. I have found them in rat-traps, however, so possibly they deserve to be so." He adds he cannot endorse the statement regarding their extraordinary ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... poverty and ignorance are associated with savage splendour, and are brought into immediate and most incongruous contact with Saxon energy and enterprize and taste and skill and love of order, and the amazing intelligence of the West in this nineteenth century—and when familiarity breeds something like contempt for many things that originally excited a vague and pleasing wonder—the English traveller in the East is apt to dwell too exclusively on the worst side of the picture, and to become insensible to the real interest, and blind to the actual beauty of ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... with rough familiarity). A word first. Tell your executioner that if Pothinus had been properly killed—IN THE THROAT—he would not have called out. ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... to walk on the parade ground, the young men attired in their best, the demoiselles gay as butterflies with a mother or married sister to guard them from too great familiarity. But there was much decorous coquetting on both sides, for even at that period many a young fellow was caught by a ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Mess Rylands, you've done forgot the vanillar," said the girl, with a certain domestic and confidential familiarity. ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... athletic; yet, when my temper was up, I was a dangerous antagonist. I soon discovered the work cut out for me. I spent every evening in preparation for the next day's lessons, and I introduced some new exercises for those older boys and girls whose familiarity with their books gave them little to do. My troubles began soon enough, not in the school, but among the parents, which was shortly reflected in their children. In every New England school district ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee

... Shakspeare was inland-bred—that he knew nothing, and could therefore have cared nothing about the matter—seeing that, insensible as he might have been to its beauties, he makes constant reference to the sea, and even in language implying that his familiarity with it was not inferior to that of any yachtsman who has ever sailed out of Cowes Harbour. He uses nautical terms frequently and appropriately. Romeo's rope-ladder is 'the high top-gallant of his joy;' King John, dying of poison, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various

... it nestled at her throat, but Jan gave no sign that he had noticed this little favor, which was meant entirely for him. He smiled at her, but there was a clear coolness in the depths of his dark eyes which checked any of the old familiarity ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... lack of familiarity with Chicago and the circumstances under which he had boarded the car, aroused the conductor's curiosity, and ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster

... beginning to have her doubts of Mr. Byron, in spite of his familiarity with Lord Worthington, smiled falsely and drew herself up a little. He turned away from her, hurt by her manner, and so ill able to conceal his feelings that Miss Carew, who was watching him, set him down privately as the most ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... science cannot be too familiarly dealt with; and though too much familiarity certainly breeds contempt, we are only following the fashion of the day, in rendering science somewhat contemptible, by the strange liberties that publishers of Penny Cyclopaedias, three-halfpenny Informations, and twopenny Stores of Knowledge, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various

... was not welcome to the house; but he had never spoken to her with happy, joy-giving words, as the future bride of his son. He still called her his daughter, as he had done before; but he did it only in his old fashion, using the affectionate familiarity of an old friend to a young maiden. He was a small, aged man, very thin and meagre in aspect—so meagre as to conceal in part, by the general tenuity of his aspect, the shortness of his stature. He was not even so tall as Nina, as Nina had discovered, ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... included an occasional hunting excursion, as game was always needed. His love of the wilderness did not decrease when thus he ranged through it and began to understand its ways. Familiarity did not breed contempt. The magnificent spaces and mighty silence appealed to him with increasing force. The columns of the trees were like cathedral aisles and the pure breath of the wind ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... looked uncomfortable, and furtively dropped an unpleasant smelling quid which he had picked up as a weapon of offence, and very offensive it was; but another lad appropriated it instantly and sniffed at it, smiling widely afterwards as if approving hugely of the vile odour. Probably familiarity had begotten contempt, for none ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... was descriptive of poverty but whose smiling countenance indicated good nature, at that moment happened to pass, and, accosting Eliza in a tone of familiarity, said: "That's not half such a pretty lamb, miss, as I have got at home, and not a quarter so tame, for if you did but say, 'Bob' he'd follow you from one end of the town to the other, and then he'll fetch ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... of joy, of enthusiasm, were all catching and she followed him blindly, aware of this great new element in her life which was to make the old life difficult, if not impossible. He treated her always with respect, not even touching her arms or waist in passing—an accepted familiarity of men by girls of her social class. Beth understood that it was a consideration due to a delicate situation, the same consideration which had impelled her always ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... mysterious to the dwellers about the Perdu. As it came to be an almost nightly feature of the place, the people supplemented its local habitation with a name, calling it "Reuben Waugh's Lantern." Celia's father, treating the Perdu and all that pertained to it with a reverent familiarity befitting his right of proprietorship, was wont ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... artillery, all baggage not needed for the contemplated march, all the sick and wounded, refugees and other encumbrances, to be sent back to Chattanooga. On its march to Atlanta the division passed over much of the old campaign ground, which had lost none of its familiarity, seeming as if there had been no lapse ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear

... had not so far dared to call her by it. She had an extraordinary power of quietly checking any attempt on his part to make tender advances. He could not himself have explained how it was done, but she contrived to make him feel that any suggestion of familiarity would put an end to their intercourse, and for nothing in the world would he have risked it. Indeed, in his loose-endedness, he looked upon the whole adventure as a special dispensation of Providence ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... to secure her affections, satisfy her inordinate desires; and that the queen was equally jealous of the Lord Rochfort and other the before-mentioned traitors; and she would not allow them to show any familiarity with any other woman, without her exceeding displeasure and indignation; and that on the 27th day of November, 27 Hen. VIII., and other days, at Westminster, she gave them gifts and great rewards, to ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... feeble-minded individuals whose intelligence has reached its full development continue to test at exactly the same mental age by the Binet scale, year after year. In their case, familiarity with the tests does not in the least improve the responses. At each retesting the responses given at previous examinations are repeated with only the most trivial variations. Of 352 feeble-minded children ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... one other deity of whom I might naturally be expected to say something; I mean Juno. But our familiarity with Juno in Roman literature must not be allowed to lead us into believing too rashly that she was one of those great numina of the early Roman State with whom I have just been dealing. She had no special festival in the ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... discomforting thought, but it was the fact; since the youth was not following the regular trail leading from the ranch to the fort at the foot of the Black Hills. But his familiarity with the country and the daylight ensured him against going astray; he was certain to do the best ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis

... Clotaire by the feudal tenure of military service. An able and trustworthy statesman in the council-chamber, a valiant and skilful commander in the battle-field, the chamberlain lived on terms of the most intimate familiarity with his king, who ever lent a ready ear to his sage suggestions. This high honour, however, being not at all agreeable to the other followers of the court, they entered into a conspiracy to ruin the favourite chamberlain. Taking ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various

... is a truly wonderful fact—the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity—that all animals and plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group, in the manner which we everywhere behold, namely, varieties of the same species ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... into the Greek temper than the works of the Greeks themselves even of the finest period. Of the Greeks as they really were, of their difference from ourselves, of the aspects of their outward life, we know far more than Botticelli, or his most learned contemporaries; but for us long familiarity has taken off the edge of the lesson, and we are hardly conscious of what we owe to the Hellenic spirit. But in pictures like this of Botticelli's you have a record of the first impression made by it on minds turned back towards it, in almost painful aspiration, from a world in which it had been ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... taciturn. His manner still retained a little of its deliberation, but towards Arnold especially he was more than courteous. He seemed, indeed, to have the desire to attract. Fenella was almost bewitching. She had recovered her spirits, and she talked to him often in a half audible undertone, the familiarity of which gave him a curious pleasure. Starling alone was silent and depressed. He drank a good deal, but ate scarcely anything. Every passing footstep upon the stairs outside alarmed him; every time voices were heard he stopped to ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... her head vigorously and ran back to the crowd. She chanced to stand next to a very tall ghost who gravely patted her cheek as she stood beside him. Dolly looked up quickly, for she did not like this familiarity from a stranger, and she was sure the phantom was too tall to be any of the boys she knew. Of course, as the party was large, there were many of the guests whom Dolly had never met, and she resented the act of the ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... soul and even some slight degree of knowledge concerning the laws which hold over the destiny of each individual being becomes, through a familiarity with phenomena now everywhere common, understood and accepted, the entire life on this planet will be changed, elevated and happified. Fancy living day after day under the bondage of the fear and dread of what everyone knows to be as inevitable as is the experience of each, of physical dissolution; ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... Noah say you wished to go to Cap'n Abe's store," he observed with neither an assumption of familiarity nor any bucolic embarrassment. "I am bound ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... the door shut. He had intended to step out into the middle of the room, fold his arms and say, "You are in trouble. I am a Friend. Trust me." Instead of which he stood panting and then spoke with sudden familiarity, hastily, guiltily: "Look here. I don't know what the juice is up, but I think there's something wrong. Excuse my intruding—if it isn't so. I'll do anything you like to help you out of the scrape—if you're in one. That's my meaning, I believe. What can I do? I ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... fallen into other hands, both Cecilia and Mrs. Lascelles felt some degree of gratitude towards him; and, although anxious to be relieved from so strange a position, they had gradually acquired a perfect confidence in him; and this had produced a degree of familiarity on their parts, although never ventured upon by the smuggler. As Corbett was at the table, one of the men came down and made a sign. Corbett shortly after quitted the table and went on deck. 'I wish, my lord, you would come up a moment, ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... sort of second conscience, which, like the fairy ring, in an old story, pinches the wearer whenever he is doing any thing amiss. Without occasioning so much awe as a mother, or so much reserve as a stranger, her sex, her affection, and the familiarity between you will form a compound of no small value in itself, and of no small influence, if you duly regard it, upon your growing character. Never for one moment suppose that a good joke at which a sister blushes, or turns pale, or even looks anxious. If you should not ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... you want to get any idea of the extraordinary originality which Morhange introduced into such surroundings, you who, after all, have a certain familiarity with the tropics, listen to this. It was exactly two hundred kilometers from here, in the vicinity of the Great Dune, in that horrible stretch of six days without water. We had just enough for two days before reaching the next well, and you know these wells; as Flatters ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... visible signs of it, yet I could not shake off a peculiar nervousness which agitated me. I lay still for some time listening to the deep and regular breathing of Ralph, and ever and anon as an owl screamed I would start, despite the familiarity of the cry. Just as I turned in my bed, and was trying to compose myself for sleep, I heard a cry very similar to the hoot of an owl; still there was something about the sound which did not sound right. My heart commenced beating rapidly and a sweat started ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... interval, a shout of laughter went up from those behind. "Good! Good idea!" one approved. And another, having some familiarity with the mechanics ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... Potter," he said with easy familiarity, "it is a good thing for you that I knew you," and he showed his white, even teeth in a smile. "But I haven't forgot that when I got speared on the Albert River five years ago you drove me into Burketown in your buggy to get a doctor for me." (He had formerly ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke

... applied to her beautiful companion, "Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance." She had been surfeited all her life with attention, and though she would certainly have felt its absence, as she would the loss of wealth, life-long familiarity with both led her to place ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... pretension and effort with those who have no right to be in it, and artificial condescension and chilling arrogance with those who have to keep their inferiors at a certain distance. With us, all being of fixed rank and acknowledged birth, familiarity is at once established." "Hence," added the Count, with his French lively smile—"hence there is no place like Vienna for a young man—no place like ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... Mrs. Tempest announced her intention of taking a second husband, Violet and Captain Winstanley had only met in the presence of other people. The Captain had tried to infuse a certain fatherly familiarity into his manner; but Vixen had met every attempt at friendliness with a sullen disdain, which kept even Captain Winstanley ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... himself seems to have been a man of the type that afterward made the New England whalers famous in all seas; the mariners of New Bedford, New London, Sag Harbor and Nantucket. But the companions of his second voyage were by no means of this stamp: the bulk of them were "gentlemen," who had no familiarity with hard fare and hard work, and expected nature to provide for them in the wilderness as bountifully as the London caterers had done at home. To the accident which brought Gosnold to a southerly instead of a northerly port on this occasion may be due the fact that Virginia instead of Massachusetts ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... private gallery from his friend, Senator Foster. To Mrs. Whitney's dismay they found the gallery filled; but fortune favored them, for just after their entrance three women seated in the front row rose and made their way out. With a quickness which showed her familiarity with conventions Mrs. Whitney pounced upon the seats, and sank into hers with a sigh of thankfulness. She had overcome a number of obstacles that morning to get there, and though it was a small matter she hated to be thwarted in ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... mine would be, and what abundant help I should need from God. That which led me to think so was this. During the day that I had been at Stuttgart, I had perceived, that all the brethren and sisters called one another "Thou," which is in Germany the sign of great familiarity, and which is used between very intimate friends or between parents and children, or husband and wife, or brothers and sisters of the same family, &c. Here now I found that males and females of all ages and different stations in life called one another "Thou." ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller

... brief personal consciousness denied in vain; and you rose among the slopes around Tivoli with a sense of home-coming from the desert of the Campagna. But in the distance to which the olive forests stretched they lost this effect of tricksy familiarity. They looked like a gray sea against the horizon; more fantastically yet, they seemed a vast hoar silence, full ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... I'll answer your letters—Philip," she spoke the name deliberately, as though enjoying her right to the familiarity of its use. "And when shall I hear ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... furniture with some recollection of his youth. At such moments he has been heard to sing softly to himself fragments of some unintelligible composition, which probably still linger in his memory as the echoes of a music he has long outgrown. He has the habit of receiving strangers with the familiarity of one who had met them before, and to whom their antecedents and peculiarities were matters of old acquaintance, and so unerring is his judgment of their previous character that when he withholds his confidence I am apt to withhold mine. It ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte

... this tall, simple-hearted country fellow to puzzle me so much. And yet, was he a simple-hearted country fellow? City bred he certainly was not; but his manner, in spite of his awkwardness, had an indescribable air of refinement. Now and then, too, he dropped a word or a phrase that showed his familiarity with unexpected lines of reading. "The other day," said Curtis, with the slightest elevation of eyebrow, "he had the cheek to correct my Latin for me." In short, Quite So was a daily problem to ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... record will the world judge Chief Justice Taney. His great familiarity with the special practice; his knowledge of the peculiar jurisdiction of his tribunals; his acquaintance with the doctrines and decisions of the common law, with equity and admiralty; his opinions on corporate and municipal powers and rights, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... store was a favored one. The music room was near enough for her to hear and become familiar with the works of the best composers—at least to acquire the familiarity that passed for appreciation in the social world in which she was vaguely trying to set a tentative and aspiring foot. She absorbed the educating influence of art wares, of costly and dainty fabrics, of adornments that are almost culture ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... are!" she exclaimed, so sharply that I was suddenly abashed. My intended familiarity and its expression appeared grotesque, although a few minutes before she was so friendly. But I could not waste precious time in studying a girl's caprices, so I asked ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it breathes: its secret alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty, which is the spirit of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... entrance should not make as much noise as if it had been a bomb, or a singer, or a clap of thunder, or the last "great novel of the season," or anything else that made a noise in those days. For what makes a noise now,—now, when the most astonishing thing of all is our easy familiarity with things astounding; when we say, listlessly, "Another revolution at Paris," or, "By the by, there is the deuce to do at Vienna!" when De Joinville is catching fish in the ponds at Claremont, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... it immediately rests,—might no doubt be exhibited within exceedingly narrow limits. Set down abruptly, however, its weight and value would inevitably fail to be recognised, even by those who already enjoy some familiarity with these studies. Very few of the considerations which I shall have to rehearse are in fact unknown to Critics: yet is it evident that their bearing on the problem before us has hitherto altogether escaped their notice. ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... ejaculated the sailor beside me in the boat, surprised at dad's familiarity with such a nautical procedure. "I am blessed if that there gentleman ain't ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... children came on Saturdays and made children's long flattering stays; and presently there was never a morning when she did not have some one, and often she was not alone at all. And thus it came about that for the first time she came to know many of her husband's parishioners with some familiarity. ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... of Jack's opinions, he wished to cultivate his acquaintance, and with a bow and a flourish, introduced himself before they arrived at Gibraltar, but our hero took an immediate dislike to this fellow from his excessive and impertinent familiarity. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... unattractive frame house, such as carpenters build in America, scantily furnished and unadorned; without the adventitious aids of dress or jewels or the fine manners of society—Harry couldn't understand it. But she fascinated him, and held him just beyond the line of absolute familiarity at the same time. While he was with her she made him forget that the Hawkins' house was nothing but a wooden tenement, with four small square rooms on the ground floor and a half story; it might have been a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... him in the flesh. His dress was of an extravagant and exaggerated style, and his overly effusive manner of greeting Miss Hamm extremely distasteful, while his attitude toward me was one of flamboyant familiarity; altogether I should say a young man of forward tendencies, shallow, flippant, utterly lacking in the deeper and finer sensibilities which ever distinguish those of true culture, and utterly disregardful of the proper and ordained conventionalities. In conversation he is addicted ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... world. In the Far East, where difficulty of access is deemed indispensable to dignity, the material approaches are still manifold and imposing. Court within court, building after building, isolate the shrine itself from the profane familiarity of the passers-by. But though the material encasings vary in number and in exclusiveness, according to the temperament of the particular race concerned, the mental envelopes exist, and must exist, in both hemispheres alike, so long as society resembles ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... pretty near to the honest folks before the mast in the article of ingenious ferocity. The captain, of course, and, generally speaking, all the officers keep quite aloof, pocketing up their dignity with vast care, and ready, at a moment's warning, to repress any undue familiarity. As things proceed, however, one or two of the officers may possibly become so much interested in the skylarking scenes going forward as to approach a little too near, and laugh a little too loud, consistently with ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... Attorney at Law Mr. Church's experience and familiarity with the real estate law, titles and values of land in Fairfax and Alexandria Counties have made his services and opinions much sought after as an expert in such matters, both by the courts and private parties. Persons seeking homes or investments in the suburbs of Washington will do well ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart

... Burchill welcomed his visitor with easy familiarity—this might have been a mere dropping-in of one friend to another, for the very ordinary purpose of spending a quiet social hour before retiring for the night. There was a bright fire on the hearth, a small smoking-jacket on Burchill's graceful ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher

... There was a haunting familiarity about her. She teased my memory as I strolled up the deck. Then, snapping the bag shut, she turned and straightened, and I recognized the girl to whose door my thief-chase had led me at ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... Liverpool Street, and drove across to Paddington. I had never, to my knowledge, been in London before: and it was all so new to me. But Liverpool Street was even newer to me than Paddington, I noticed. A faint sense of familiarity seemed to hang about the Great Western line. And that was not surprising, I thought, as I turned it over; for, of course, in the old days, when we lived at Woodbury, I must often have come down from town that way with my father. ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... ease born of the vigor her nineteen outdoor years had stored in the strong young body. She wanted to be alone, to puzzle out what the coming of this man meant to her. Had he intended anything by that last drawling remark of his in the store? Why was it that his careless, half insulting familiarity set the blood leaping through her like wine? He lured her to the sex duel, then trampled down her reserves roughshod. His bold assurance stung her to anger, but there was a something deeper than anger that left ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... something in this pleasant familiarity which won Uncle Ephraim at once, and he bade the young man stay, as did Aunt Hannah and Mrs. Lennox, who now for the first time were presented to Mark Ray. Always capable of adapting himself to the circumstances ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... came and went with all his old familiarity: not a day passed without his seeing Annie, and planning something for her amusement or pleasure. Not a day passed without her showing in many ways that he made a large part of her life, was really ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... improve their habitations, and to cover the wet earth on which they lay with a thick carpet of fern. Exertion had become more dreadful to them than death. It was not to be expected that men who would not help themselves should help each other. Nobody asked and nobody showed compassion. Familiarity with ghastly spectacles produced a hardheartedness and a desperate impiety, of which an example will not easily be found even in the history of infectious diseases. The moans of the sick were drowned by the blasphemy and ribaldry of their comrades. Sometimes, seated on the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and easy deportment of Madame Polozov would probably for the first moment have disconcerted Sanin—though he was not quite a novice and had knocked about the world a little—if he had not again seen in this very freedom and familiarity a good omen for his undertaking. 'We must humour this rich lady's caprices,' he decided inwardly; and as unconstrainedly as she had questioned him he answered, 'Yes; I am going ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... climb the craigs where the gulls had their nests. It was a feat of daring only performed by reckless boys and young men who were reared on the littoral, and who were strong and spirited craigsmen by inheritance and by familiarity with the dangerous sport of egg-collecting among the giddy heights of precipices on which, if they took but one false step, they might be ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... his unusual vein. One finds it is by these fine points, these obvious clevernesses that Fitch paved the way to popular success. But there was far more to him than this—there was the literary sense which gave one the feeling of reality in his plays—not alone because of novelty or familiarity of scene, but ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch

... his splendid retinue should halt in that city, while the Caesar himself, with only ten post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan. In this rapid journey, the profound respect which was due to the brother and colleague of Constantius, was insensibly changed into rude familiarity; and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances of the attendants that they already considered themselves as his guards, and might soon be employed as his executioners, began to accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect, with terror and remorse, the conduct ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... the point of flight, dreading the possible insolence of one of the men of his late regiment. But the voice of the speaker rang in his ears with a strange familiarity, and the great fleshy nose, the high cheekbones, and the little gray eyes in the weather-beaten face suggested vaguely some one of the long ago. His dawning recognition amused ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... was constantly with the Merton family; there was no need of excuse for familiarity on his part. Mr. Merton, charmed to find his advances not rejected, thrust intimacy ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... who take liberties with others, are often much surprised if they are retorted on with severity. It is better, then, to keep from undue familiarity with strangers, for we know not of what ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... it,—but exactly of what, Miss Darley either could not or did not try to think. The subject of the paper was The Mountain,—the composition being a sort of descriptive rhapsody. It showed a startling familiarity with some of the savage scenery of the region. One would have said that the writer must have threaded its wildest solitudes by the light of the moon and stars as well as by day. As the teacher read on, her color changed, and a kind of tremulous agitation came over her. There were hints in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... on the stump of a fallen tree when the hunter came up. She was a fair, beautiful woman of about five-and-twenty, with an air of modesty about her which attracted love, yet repelled familiarity. Many a good-looking and well-doing young fellow had attempted to gain the heart of Marie during the last two years, but without success—for this good reason, that her heart had ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne

... and mounted the long staircase to the drawing-room, where the tea-table was already spread, the flame quivering under the kettle, the deep pink china laid out on a silver tray. But the homeliness of the scene and its familiarity had no power to soothe that aching, distracted heart. Had she been a man, she thought, she might have sought her refuge in ceaseless work, in great ambitions, in achievements. This eternal tea-pouring and word-mincing, this business of forced ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... word." "I am old and infirm," said Bishop Mac Carthend, "and you have left all my early companions in churches, whilst I am still on the road." "I will leave thee in a church," said Patrick, "that shall not be too near us for familiarity, that shall not be too distant for intercourse between us." And Patrick afterwards left Bishop Mac Carthend in Clochar, and the Domhnach-Airgid with him, which was sent to Patrick from heaven when he was on ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... in the latest fashion, a vulgarly pretty face,—what the women call 'not bad,'—feebly built physically, but with no deformity; with hips as broad as a woman's; correct, and insinuating himself into the familiarity of people as far as possible, but having that keen sense that quickly detects a false step and retires in reason,—a man, in short, observant of the external rules of dignity, with that special Parisianism that is revealed in buttoned boots, a gaudy cravat, and ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... affects that crime not in the least. The same is true of reading certain books, novels and love-stories, for people of a certain spiritual complexion. The same is true of company-keeping, street-walking, familiarity and loose conversation. Nor can anything different be said of such liberties, consented to or merely tolerated, as embracing and kissing, amorous effusions and all perilous amusements of this nature. When experience shows these things to be fraught with danger, then they become sinful ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... be required to exhibit a familiarity with the nine parts of speech and the rules in relation thereto; must be able to parse any ordinary sentence given to them, and, generally, must understand those portions of the subject usually taught in the higher academies and schools throughout ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... for the water," he concluded, without any consciousness of familiarity in the change of phrase. "Not that I know much myself, touching swimming and the like. For I can't ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan



Words linked to "Familiarity" :   informality, misdeed, unfamiliar, familiar, liberty, slanginess, usualness, misbehaviour, friendliness, information, unfamiliarity, misbehavior



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