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Affinity vs Intimacy - What's the difference?

affinity | intimacy |

As nouns the difference between affinity and intimacy

is that affinity is a natural attraction or feeling of kinship to a person or thing while intimacy is feeling or atmosphere of closeness and openness towards someone else, not necessarily involving sexuality.

affinity

English

Noun

(wikipedia affinity) (affinities)
  • A natural attraction or feeling of kinship to a person or thing.
  • A family relationship through marriage of a relative (e.g. sister-in-law), as opposed to consanguinity. (e.g. sister).
  • A kinsman or kinswoman of such relationship. Affinal kinsman or kinswoman.
  • The fact of and manner in which something is related to another.
  • * 1997 , Chris Horrocks, Introducing Foucault'', page 67, ''The Renaissance Episteme (Totem Books, Icon Books; ISBN 1840460865):
    • A “signature” was placed on all things by God to indicate their affinities' — but it was hidden, hence the search for arcane knowledge. Knowing was '''guessing''' and ' interpreting , not observing or demonstrating.
  • Any romantic relationship.
  • Any passionate love for something.
  • (taxonomy) resemblances between biological populations; resemblances that suggest that they are of a common origin, type or stock.
  • (geology) structural resemblances between minerals; resemblances that suggest that they are of a common origin or type.
  • (chemistry) An attractive force between atoms, or groups of atoms, that contributes towards their forming bonds
  • (medicine) The attraction between an antibody and an antigen
  • (computing) tendency to keep a task running on the same processor in a symmetric multiprocessing operating system to reduce the frequency of cache misses
  • (geometry) An automorphism of affine space.

    • Derived terms

    * affinity card * affinity fraud * affinity reagent * microaffinity

    intimacy

    English

    Noun

    (wikipedia intimacy) (intimacies)
  • feeling or atmosphere of closeness and openness towards someone else, not necessarily involving sexuality
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=May 27 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid On The Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=The Conan O’Brien-penned half-hour has the capacity to rip our collective hearts out the way the cute, funny bad girl next door does to Bart when she reveals that her new boyfriend is Jimbo Jones, but the show keeps shying away from genuine emotion in favor of jokes that, while overwhelmingly funny, detract from the poignancy and the emotional intimacy of the episode.}}

    Antonyms

    * solitude

    Related terms

    * intimate * intimation