aqueyntaunce

• aquayntaunce, aqueintance, aqueyntance, a-queyntaunce
• acquaintaunce, acqueyntaunce, aqueyntanse (Late Middle English)
• aqueyntauns, a-queyntawnse, aqweyntauns, aqweyntawnce, aqweyntawns (East Anglia, Essex); aquayntonce (Kent); acointance, acoyntaunse, a-quoyntaunce (West Midland)
• aquaintance, aquantance (Northern); acquintance, acquyntance, acquyntans, acqweyntawns, aqweyntans (Early Scots)

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman aquaintaunce, aqueintance, Old French acointance (“friendship, familiarity”), from Old French acointier (“to acquaint”); equivalent to aqueynten +‎ -aunce.

• IPA^(key): /aˌkwæi̯nˈta(u̯)ns(ə)/, /aˈkwæi̯nta(u̯)ns(ə)/
• IPA^(key): /aˌk(w)ui̯nˈta(u̯)ns(ə)/, /aˈk(w)ui̯nta(u̯)ns(ə)/ (West Midland)
• IPA^(key): /aˌkwinˈtans/, /aˈkwintans/ (Early Scots)

aqueyntaunce (plural aqueyntaunces) (especially Late Middle English)

1. Friendship, intimacy; social connection or familiarity.
2. Connection or familiarity with a concept or thing.
3. One's social connections; one's companions, friends or relatives.
4. (rare) A companion or friend.
5. (rare) A spiritual connection with God; communion.

• Unlike modern English acquaintance, the term aqueyntaunce does not necessarily imply a passing or slight social connection.

• English: acquaintance
• Middle Scots: acquentance
  • Scots: acquantance, acquentance, acquaintance, akquantence

• “aqueinta(u)nce, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
• “acquentance, n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.