All 3 Uses of
acquaint
in
Gulliver's Travels
- But great allowances should be given to a king, who lives wholly secluded from the rest of the world, and must therefore be altogether unacquainted with the manners and customs that most prevail in other nations: the want of which knowledge will ever produce many prejudices, and a certain narrowness of thinking, from which we, and the politer countries of Europe, are wholly exempted.†
Chpt 2unacquainted = not familiar withstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unacquainted means not and reverses the meaning of acquainted. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- They are well enough acquainted with the motions of those two luminaries, and understand the nature of eclipses; and this is the utmost progress of their astronomy.†
Chpt 4acquainted = familiar with OR a friend or associate
- But, if these censurers were better acquainted with the noble and courteous disposition of the Houyhnhnms, they would soon change their opinion.†
Chpt 4 *
Definition:
to cause to know; or to cause to be familiar with