1Close familiarity or friendship.

1. 1.1 A cosy and private or relaxed atmosphere.
   the room had a peaceful sense of intimacy about it

   Example sentencesExamples

   • But because rooms measure no more than 180 square feet, they maintain a sense of intimacy.
   • ‘We offer signed books, which create a sense of intimacy and pride for the clients,’ said Harris.
   • An atmosphere of warmth and intimacy is created, and long-held bodily tensions are released.
   • Despite the monumental scale of the program and spaces, this church retains a sense of warmth and intimacy.
   • He says it is difficult to achieve a sense of intimacy in such a large museum, but he feels it succeeds because of the commitment of the project team.
   • The cheeky, Spanish gig-a-long ‘A Minha Menina’ injected some needed intimacy into the atmosphere with a throng of dancers and not a mosh pit in sight.
   • Lighter colours on the walls, such as pale yellows, give a fresh look - though darker colours give a greater sense of intimacy.
   • Do not be put off by my description of the bare red brick walls and ceiling, because somehow they lend an atmosphere of cosiness and intimacy.
   • The meditative mood and ethereal atmosphere of the painting create an aura of intimacy that counters the epic scale of its composition.
   • Soft carpets and fabrics convey a sense of warmth, intimacy, and privacy.
   • These were ingenious tactics that created an atmosphere of intimacy - and produced an ultimate irony.
   • All in all, though, the meal was excellent and the surroundings dark and sleek enough to induce a pleasing sense of intimacy.
   • The single dancing flame in the center of the table created an atmosphere of intimacy.
   • To sense the loss of privacy and dignity, we must first feel that they existed; regrettably, the set does not create the necessary sense of domestic intimacy.
   • Apart from the fresh air and exercise, there's a real sense of intimacy with your surroundings when you travel by bike, a feeling of closeness and access that other forms of transport simply cannot provide.
   • This has the similar sense of intimacy on the move, exploiting the car's singular potential as a partly private, partly public place.
   • The main dining area is sectioned off with opaque glass windows and sheer curtains that give a sense of intimacy matched by the gracious service.
   • The boats are 12-to 22-berth vessels, so there's a greater sense of intimacy than on the typical Caribbean cruise.
   • Gas lamps and good quality mahogany furniture provided an atmosphere of warmth and intimacy.
2. 1.2euphemistic Sexual intercourse.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • At the time of the survey, sexual intimacy no longer occurred in their relationships.
   • Have older gays lost touch with the value of sexual intimacy?
   • For example, God still says that marriage needs to come before sexual intimacy.
   • Yet many of our opponents argue that we ought to forsake sexual intimacy in favor of celibacy.
   • One of the greatest sources for holiness can be found during moments of physical intimacy between husband and wife.
   • Many people consider sexual intimacy to be only or most appropriate in marriage.
   • These benefits do not flow from other living arrangements, even if sexual intimacy is an element.
   • Siva's young followers are taught to protect their chastity as a treasure and to save sexual intimacy for their future spouse.
   • There were times when it was hard, when one or other of us would be crying out for more, be it moving in, or more often a cry for the delights of sexual intimacy.
   • These factors have implications for intimacy and sexuality.
   • In other words, not all opportunities for intimacy or sexual interaction may be perceived as equally desirable or rewarding.
   • Many of my old inhibitions resurfaced now that I faced the risks of sexual intimacy.
   • For virgins, the issue of timing is more evident because they have not met the cultural deadline of sexual intimacy with a partner.
   • Be close - build and maintain emotional and sexual intimacy in your relationship.
   • It could not be more clear that research must be conducted on the relative status of sexual intimacy in the minds of persons engaged in different kinds of procreative activity.
   • The Sexual Attitudes Scale was designed to measure attitudes about sexual behavior and the place of sexual intimacy in relationships.
   • Some fulfill their desire for sexual intimacy within a long-term committed relationship.
   • What are the implications of achieving sexuality before intimacy?
   • Or is sexual intimacy such an important part of an adult relationship that impotence should be viewed as a problem that should and now can be cured?
   • These results suggest that stereotypes of older persons as not interested in sexual intimacy are wrong.

   Synonyms

   sexual relations, sexual intercourse, sex, intercourse, lovemaking, act of love, carnal knowledge, sexual congress, congress

   formal coition, coitus, copulation
3. 1.3count noun An intimate remark.
   here she was sitting swapping intimacies with a stranger

   Example sentencesExamples

   • But, the cameras also pick-up your intimacies, including if you and your date get a little smoochy, providing voyeuristic fun for the kitchen staff.
   • They offer intimacies and images and further insight about how things come together.
   • In a confessional culture, intimacies are offered to the media for public consumption.
   • This type of mobile communication is interesting to me because of its peculiar intimacies.
   • It would be a rare individual who would want to share such family intimacies with a stranger.
   • As anyone who's had to sit next to a drunk on the last bus home will tell you, there's nothing worse than a stranger's uninvited intimacies.
   • Candid cameras give pleasure, the intimacies of other persons are interesting and when they're degrading to the mighty and great, they are all the more acceptable.
   • And since we are sharing… intimacies… well, I am anyway - I might as well be totally frank and admit up-front that I often find myself in awe of my friend's perspicacity.
   • ‘Simple semantics may help quell patients' fears that they will be seen by a scruffy, disinterested youth who may well later report their intimacies in the bar,’ he writes.
   • Ali has a powerful, clear eye for detail and she introduces intimacies of immigrant life that few outside the community have known.
   • Describing the Other, or giving a motive behind the communication, would have greatly diminished its power - better to let people project from their own intimacies, and imagine their own masters.
   • They are four characters in search of an objective correlative, their intimacies obstructed by lofty words - honesty, cowardice, love - that seem, after a while, to mean nothing at all.
   • Others are steered by prosecutors' questions to areas they might not have wanted to speak about, such as personal emotional trauma, household intimacies, or their financial instability.
   • I still love this notion that great writers of the past had extensive intercourse and traded intimacies but never met each other.
   • The supposed intimacies within the group begin to break down when Carla - the artsy ingenue - is brutally attacked after receiving a poetry award.
   • On fire now, he designs a nationwide study of thousands of adults, their intimacies recorded in explicit questionnaires administered by his zealous disciples.
   • Time is telescoped so that within months you are an old familiar face; your secrets and intimacies have been folded inside out and made the object of communal curiosity and solicitation.
   • We are told that men are distant and uncomfortable about sharing intimacies - they prefer to confine their conversation to football and slagging.
   • What about the much wider and more important issue of the whole network of intimacies - political, media, business and social - that continues to discredit public life in Scotland?
   • This vow echoes like an eerie refrain through a piece that examines the deepest intimacies of marriage while questioning the rules and expectations that govern it.
4. 1.4in singular Closeness of observation or knowledge of a subject.
   he acquired an intimacy with Swahili literature

   Example sentencesExamples

   • His decades-long intimacy with his subject invests The Life and Times of Mexico with a passion and urgency that set it apart from textbook treatments.
   • The film, which has an almost reality-show level of intimacy with its subjects, is remarkable for its scope.
   • By contrast, Thoreau's solitude gave him an observant intimacy with nature that enriched his relation to others.
   • The absolute intimacy with the text that such a process would require seems to negate the idea that the dashes in the first edition were not done by the hand of the author herself.
   • Deep within me I rediscovered the man of the American tropics, the geographical man accustomed to an intimacy with nature.
   • It's very rare for a sporting biographer to have simultaneously a genuine intimacy with their subject and the latitude to call a life as they see it.
   • This enduring involvement creates a closeness/intimacy with the text.
   • Testino's trademark is the intimacy he attains with his subject and his ability to embody the spirit of the fleeting moment.
   • That so fluent and outgoing a piece as his for the LRB achieves such exceptional intimacy with its profound and wide-eared subject is surely a related phenomenon.
   • They usually have a deeply realized sense of where they ‘belong,’ and exhibit a profound intimacy with their local environs.