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Intimate vs Inmate - What's the difference?

intimate | inmate |

As nouns the difference between intimate and inmate

is that intimate is a very close friend while inmate is a person confined to an institution such as a prison (as a convict) or hospital (as a patient).

As an adjective intimate

is closely acquainted; familiar.

As a verb intimate

is to suggest or disclose discreetly.

intimate

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Closely acquainted; familiar.
  • an intimate friend
    He and his sister deeply valued their intimate relationship as they didn't have much else to live for.
  • Of or involved in a sexual relationship.
  • She enjoyed some intimate time alone with her husband.
  • Personal; private.
  • an intimate setting

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A very close friend.
  • Only a couple of intimates had ever read his writing.
  • (in plural intimates ) Women's underwear, sleepwear, or lingerie, especially offered for sale in a store.
  • You'll find bras and panties in the women's intimates section upstairs.

    Synonyms

    * (close friend) bosom buddy, bosom friend, cater-cousin

    Verb

    (intimat)
  • To suggest or disclose discreetly.
  • * '>citation
  •     The Kaiser beamed. Von Bulow had praised him. Von Bulow had exalted him and humbled himself. The Kaiser could forgive anything after that. "Haven't I always told you," he exclaimed with enthusiasm, "that we complete one another famously? We should stick together, and we will!"
        [...]
        Von Bulow saved himself in time—but, canny diplomat that he was, he nevertheless had made one error: he should have begun by talking about his own shortcomings and Wilhelm's superiority—not by intimating that the Kaiser was a half-wit in need of a guardian.
    He intimated that we should leave before the argument escalated.

    inmate

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person confined to an institution such as a prison (as a convict) or hospital (as a patient)
  • A person who occupies or dwells within a dwelling-house. The word came to be used to refer to temporary inhabitants such as guests in a hotel, students in an on-campus dormitory, patients in a hospital, or prisoners.
  • Usage notes

    Perhaps around 1970, television journalists began to use the word as a euphemism for "prisoner", and today perhaps many young people cannot remember that it ever had any other meaning.

    Anagrams

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