acquaintanceship

From acquaintance +‎ -ship.

acquaintanceship (usually uncountable, plural acquaintanceships)

1. (uncountable) The state of being acquainted.

   Synonym: acquaintance

   • 1640, The Knave in Graine, New Vampt‎, London: John Day, act III, scene 1:

     What, eschew acquaintanceship? forget, After my most hearty commendations, my very trusty friend, ’Twere sin and shame Tomaso.

   • 1889, “The Libation-Bearers”, in Edmund Doidge Anderson Morshead, transl., The House of Atreus, page 114:

     To host and hostess thus with fortune blest,
     Lief had I come with better news to bear
     Unto your greeting and acquaintanceship;

   • 1915, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 5, in Anne of the Island‎:

     Without effort, she took them with her into her ever widening circle of acquaintanceship, and the two Avonlea girls found their social pathway at Redmond made very easy and pleasant for them […]

   • 1971, E. M. Forster, chapter 33, in Maurice‎, Penguin, published 1972, page 143:

     When they talked down the telephone he heard a man whom he might respect at the other end of it — a fellow who sounded willing to let bygones be bygones and passion acquaintanceship.

2. (countable) A relationship as acquaintances.
   • 1753, George Wollaston, The Life and History of a Pilgrim‎, Dublin, Book 2, p. 137:

     They began their acquaintanceship very lovingly, and after a shake or two by the hand, Bell gave him a more particular account of the uses and sanctity of his office […]

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Old Piano”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 536:

     In their long acquaintanceship and intimacy they could not recall an harsh word that had been uttered by Amelia.

   • 1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 4, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC, page 42:

     I have already spoken to them through my window to begin an acquaintanceship.

   • 1905, William John Locke, The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne‎, Part 2, Chapter 21:

     A growing distaste for the forced acquaintanceships of travel and a craving for home brought me back.

   • 1979, Patrick White, The Twyborn Affair‎, Penguin, published 1981, Part 2, pp. 133-134:

     It was an acquaintanceship formed partly out of boredom, partly for mutual protection […]

   • 2013, Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North‎, Part 2, Chapter 15:

     […] because she felt a strange freedom—even a security—in having decided that no acquaintanceship could end in anything untoward, she felt emboldened to sometimes do and say such things to men […]

• acquaint
• acquaintance
• acquainted
• unacquainted