Acquainted

How to spell acquainted

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce acquainted

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does acquainted mean?

1. adjectiveHaving personal knowledge of someone, or being familiar with a fact, place, or subject.

Acquainted in a sentence

• The two managers became acquainted at a conference last spring.

• She was already acquainted with the new accounting software before training began.

Where does acquainted come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb cognoscere, meaning 'to get to know' or 'to recognise', built from co- ('together') and gnoscere ('to know'). In Late Latin a derived form, accognitare, carried the sense of 'to make known' or 'to cause to know'. That passed into Old French as acointier, and English borrowed it in the 1200s as 'acquaint', meaning to make someone familiar with a person or a fact. The unusual 'qu' spelling is a fossil from that French stage rather than a phonetic one, which is exactly why writers stumble: they hear a plain 'kw' but must remember the 'cq' cluster. The same gnoscere root still hides inside relatives like 'recognise', 'cognition', and even 'quaint', so the family resemblance can help anchor the tricky middle of the word.

How the word is built

• ac- (from Latin ad-, 'to')
• quaint (root from cognoscere, 'to know')
• -ed (past participle/adjective suffix)