intimate

From Latin intimare (“to put or bring into, to impress, to make familiar”), from intimus (“inmost, innermost, most intimate”), superlative of intus (“within”), from in (“in”); see interior.

Adjective, noun

• enPR: ĭn'tĭmət, IPA^(key): /ˈɪn.tɪ.mət/

• Audio (US)

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Verb

• enPR: ĭn'tĭmāt, IPA^(key): /ˈɪn.tɪ.meɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

intimate (comparative more intimate, superlative most intimate)

1. Closely acquainted; familiar.

   an intimate friend

   He and his sister deeply valued their intimate relationship as they didn't have much else to live for.

2. Of or involved in a sexual relationship.

   She enjoyed some intimate time alone with her husband.

3. Personal; private.

   an intimate setting

4. Pertaining to details that require great familiarity to know.
   • 2015, Slawomir Pikula, Joanna Bandorowicz-Pikula, Patrick Groves, “NMR of lipids”, in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, volume 44, Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, ISSN 0305-9804, page 391:

     Grélard et al.⁸⁷ determined the intimate structure of pseudoviral particles of hepatitis B subvirus using solid-state NMR, light scattering, and cryo-electron microscopy.

intimate (plural intimates)

1. A very close friend.

   Only a couple of intimates had ever read his writing.

2. (in plural intimates) Women's underwear, sleepwear, or lingerie, especially offered for sale in a store.

   You'll find bras and panties in the women's intimates section upstairs.

• (close friend): bosom buddy, bosom friend, cater-cousin

intimate (third-person singular simple present intimates, present participle intimating, simple past and past participle intimated)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To suggest or disclose (something) discreetly.
   • 1936, Dale Carnegie, “Part 4, Chapter 3. TALK ABOUT YOUR OWN MISTAKES FIRST”, in How to Win Friends and Influence People‎, page 223:

         The Kaiser beamed. Von Bulow had praised him. Von Bulow had exalted him and humbled himself. The Kaiser could forgive anything after that. "Haven't I always told you," he exclaimed with enthusiasm, "that we complete one another famously? We should stick together, and we will!"
         [...]
         Von Bulow saved himself in time—but, canny diplomat that he was, he nevertheless had made one error: he should have begun by talking about his own shortcomings and Wilhelm's superiority—not by intimating that the Kaiser was a half-wit in need of a guardian.

   He intimated that we should leave before the argument escalated.

2. (transitive, India) To notify.

   I will intimate you when the details are available.

• intimacy
• intimation

• intimate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• intimate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• antitime

intimate

1. present adverbial passive participle of intimi

intimate

1. second-person plural present indicative of intimare
2. second-person plural imperative of intimare
3. feminine plural of intimato

• imitante

intimāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of intimō