acquaintance
/ʌˈkweɪn.təns/noun
acquaintance is spelled A-C-Q-U-A-I-N-T-A-N-C-E. The wrong spelling people search most is aquaintance: about 200 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 16 of all searches for the word. Acquaintance is a noun meaning “A state of being acquainted with a person; originally indicating friendship, intimacy, but now suggesting a…”. The plural of acquaintance is acquaintances.
How many letters and syllables are in acquaintance?
| Letters | 12: A-C-Q-U-A-I-N-T-A-N-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.5 times per million words; the 13,897th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 4; the most searched, aquaintance, about 200 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell acquaintance?
Acquaintance is spelled A-C-Q-U-A-I-N-T-A-N-C-E. 4 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 12 of the searches for acquaintance in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is acquaintance?
Acquaintance appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 13,897th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce acquaintance?
- UK /əˈkweɪntəns/
- US /ʌˈkweɪn.təns/
Acquaintance has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-acquaintance.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of acquaintance
- acquaintances plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does acquaintance mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A state of being acquainted with a person; originally indicating friendship, intimacy, but now suggesting a slight knowledge less deep than that of friendship; acquaintanceship.
I know of the man; but have no acquaintance with him.
- 2
A person or persons with whom one is acquainted.
- 3
Such people collectively; one's circle of acquaintances (with plural concord).
- 4
Personal knowledge (with a specific subject etc.).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Acquaintance in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | relation, accointance, connaissance , fréquentation |
| German | Bekanntschaft, Umgang , Bekannter, Bekannte |
| Portuguese | familiaridade , conhecido |
| Spanish | amistad, conocimiento, junta, relación, trato , conocido |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does acquaintance come from?
From Middle English aqueyntaunce, from Anglo-Norman aquaintaunce, aqueintance, Old French acointance (“friendship, familiarity”), from Old French acointier (“to acquaint”). Compare French accointance. Morphologically acquaint + -ance.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).