FAMILIAR Copy link • FAMILIAR 1. Pertaining to a family; domestic, familiaris: domesticus. (The words are found in this connection and order.) domesticus ac familiaris. Intimate, familiaris: domesticus: intimus (SYN. in INTIMATE). Anybody’s familiar friend, alicujus or alicui familiaris: familiaris amicus (Plin.): a mast familiar friend, familiarissimus (alicujus): qui est ex alicujus domesticis atque intimis familiaribus (Cic.). [Vid: INTIMATE.] Intimately known, well-acquainted, familiaris (e.g., hunc, qui familiarior nobis... est. Demosthenem, Cic.; vox auribus meis familiaris, Petronius): bene notus (well-known). ☞ To translate “with which we are familiar,” say qui nobis est familiaris, bene notus, etc.: to be familiar with anything, aliquid mihi familiare or bene notum est: familiariter novi aliquid (Quint.). [Vid: ACQUAINTED.] Affable, intimate (in manner) with those beneath us, communis (e.g., communis infimis, par principibus, Nep.). [Vid: AFFABLE.] To be familiar with anybody, familiariter loqui cum aliquo (Cic.): familiarius vivere cum aliquo (with reference to the terms on which one lives). [Vid: AFFABLE.] Simple, not elevated, etc., with reference to style, ad sensum popularem vulgaremque or ad commune judicium popularemque intelligentiam accommodatus (popular; ☞ not popularis or familiaris in this sense, though familiaris interpretatio has been commonly used, and lately even by Orelli): familiariter scriptus (in the style of a friend writing naturally and confidentially to a friend; Cic.). A familiar spirit, *umbra, quae alicui adest: genius alicujus, or (after Servius’s definition) naturalis deus alicujus. 2. subst. Vid: “FAMILIAR friend” and INTIMATE.