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Familiar vs Threadbare - What's the difference?

familiar | threadbare | Related terms |

Familiar is a related term of threadbare.


As adjectives the difference between familiar and threadbare

is that familiar is familial while threadbare is (of cloth) shabby, frayed and worn to an extent that warp threads show.

familiar

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Known to one.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.}}
  • Acquainted.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=20 citation , passage=The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen. No one queried it. It was in the classic pattern of human weakness, mean and embarrassing and sad.}}
  • Intimate or friendly.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Be thou familiar , but by no means vulgar.
  • Inappropriately intimate or friendly.
  • (Camden)
  • Of or pertaining to a family; familial.
  • * Byron
  • familiar feuds

    Synonyms

    * (acquainted) acquainted * close, friendly, intimate, personal * (inappropriately intimate or friendly) cheeky, fresh, impudent

    Antonyms

    * (known to one) unfamiliar, unknown * (acquainted) unacquainted * (intimate) cold, cool, distant, impersonal, standoffish, unfriendly

    Derived terms

    * overfamiliar * familiarity * familiarly

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A member of one's family or household.
  • (obsolete) A close friend.
  • *, II.i.4.2:
  • a friend of mine, that finding a receipt in Brassavola, would needs take hellebore in substance, and try it on his own person; but had not some of his familiars come to visit him by chance, he had by his indiscretion hazarded himself; many such I have observed.
  • An attendant spirit, often in animal form.
  • The witch’s familiar was a black cat.

    threadbare

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (of cloth) shabby, frayed and worn to an extent that warp threads show
  • * 2014, (Paul Salopek), Blessed. Cursed. Claimed. , National Geographic (December 2014)[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text]
  • Unkempt, in threadbare clothes, with holed shoes and sun-cured hide, my costume is permanent: the traveler, the man from far away.
  • damaged or shabby
  • * Thomas Carlyle
  • Holy Virgin stood in the main Convent of Glatz, in rather a threadbare condition, when the Prussians first approached; the Jesuits, and ardently Orthodox of both sexes, flagitating Heaven and her with their prayers, that she would vouchsafe to keep the Prussians out.
  • (of a person) wearing clothes of threadbare material
  • (of speech) banal or ; trite or hackneyed
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=August 21 , author=Jason Heller , title=The Darkness: Hot Cakes (Music Review) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=When the album succeeds, such as on the swaggering, Queen-esque “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us,” it does so on The Darkness’ own terms—that is, as a random ’80s-cliché generator. But with so many tired, lazy callbacks to its own threadbare catalog (including “Love Is Not The Answer,” a watery echo of the epic “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” from 2003’s Permission To Land''), ''Hot Cakes marks the point where The Darkness has stopped cannibalizing the golden age of stadium rock and simply started cannibalizing itself. And, despite Hawkins’ inveterate crotch-grabbing, there was never that much meat there to begin with. }}

    Synonyms

    * See also