Meaning & use
intimately
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Meanings
adverbnot comparable
With thorough, close knowledge or involvement, as if from long experience.
Grammar: Often sits before a past participle: intimately familiar, intimately involved.
Patterns
- intimately familiar with something
- intimately connected to something
- know someone intimately
She knows the old town intimately after living there for forty years.
The two projects are intimately linked.
He was intimately involved in the negotiations.
adverbnot comparable
In a close, private and personal way between people.
Grammar: Describes how people speak, touch or relate: they talked intimately.
Patterns
- talk intimately
- be intimately acquainted
The couple spoke intimately in a quiet corner of the cafe.
They had never met, yet she wrote to him almost intimately.
Common combinations
- intimately connected
- Poverty and poor health are intimately connected.
- intimately familiar
- The guide is intimately familiar with every trail.
- know intimately
- A good editor knows the author's style intimately.
- intimately involved
- The mayor was intimately involved in the planning.
- intimately related
- Sleep and memory are intimately related.
Synonyms and how they differ
- closely
- Closely is the plain everyday choice and carries less feeling of personal depth than intimately.
- thoroughly
- Thoroughly stresses completeness of knowledge, but not the sense of personal closeness.
- personally
- Personally focuses on a first-hand role, whereas intimately suggests detailed or emotional closeness.
- deeply
- Deeply is broader and more emotional, and it fits feelings better than knowledge.
Opposites
Word family
- intimate adjective
- close, private or very detailed
- intimacy noun
- a state of close personal connection
- intimate verb
- to hint at something indirectly, a formal use
- intimation noun
- a hint or sign
Commonly confused: intimately or inmately?
intimately vs inmately
This is not a real word; the adverb is always spelled intimately.
Practice
Complete the sentence: 'The plumber knew the building's pipes ____.'
Choose one answer.
Intimately means with deep, detailed knowledge, so it fits a plumber who knows the pipes well. Distantly is nearly the opposite.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “intimately”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.