What does "intimate" mean?
Intimate: Near; close; direct; thorough; complete. He was honored with an intimate and immediate admission. South.
Additional senses
- 2.Close in friendship or acquaintance; familiar; confidential; as, an intimate friend.
- 3.An intimate friend or associate; a confidant. Gov. of the Tongue.
- 4.To announce; to declare; to publish; to communicate; to make known. [Obs.] He, incontinent, did proclaim and intimate open war. E. Hall. So both conspiring 'gan to intimate Each other's grief. Spenser.
- 5.To suggest obscurely or indirectly; to refer to remotely; to give slight notice of; to hint; as, he intimated his intention of resigning his office. The names of simple ideas and substances, with the abstract ideas in the mind, intimate some real existence, from which was derived their original pattern. Locke.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
- Canonical URL: https://worddirectanswers.com/answers/what-does-intimate-mean
- Steward: Jason Burns
- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00