someone who you know (very) well but is not a friend ["acquaintance" or not?] (2025)

Let's say you have lived in the same apartment and have worked in the same office for many years, and there are people in the apartment/office who you know (very) well but are not your friends (maybe you don't like them). One of them was using a brand that you didn't know. The following is a conversation you had in a focus group interview which you took part in.

Moderator: "Where did you first hear about this brand?"
You: "An acquaintance (of mine) was using it. / Someone I know was using it. "

"Acquaintance" is wrong, according to some of the dictionaries I have checked:

"a person one knows

, but who is not a close friend" (ODE)
"someone who you have met and know

, but not well" (Collins)

Am I correct?

Thank you all very much for the replies. I'll use "someone I know" in that context if I don't want to mention who that "someone" is.

sound shift said:

"Slightly" is imprecise, so the notion of an acquaintance is imprecise too. In any case, "acquaintance" is a bit formal, not very conversational. In your scenario, I would be more inclined to use "someone I know" than "acquaintance", although it would not be wrong to use "acquaintance" here.

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So, the "knows

" part in the dictionaries is misleading and I can use "acquaintance" for anyone I know personally (including those I know very well), other than friends and family. For example, in a paper/computer survey...

Q. How did you first hear about this brand? Please choose one source only.

1. Advertisement
2. Social media post
3. Family/friend/acquaintance
4. Store employee

Yeah, I feel I use the word "acquaintance" for someone I know who is not a friend nor family, nor someone else I can or want to define (like coworker, neighbor). So, I might use "acquaintance" in conversation if I don't want to explain in detail to the other person how I know this person/acquaintance...I just want to get the point across that it's someone I know.

But it is more formal than "someone I know."

meijin said:

I can use "acquaintance" for anyone I know personally (including those I know very well), other than friends and family.

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In some contexts, it could include friends and family too. For example in your post #5, if source no.3 was just "Acquaintance" instead of "Family/friend/acquaintance", I'd tick it if my source had been a relative or a friend.

I agree with Sound Shift that the word isn't very conversational. I generally hear it used in formal contexts, or to specify that someone you know isn't someone you know well. He's more an acquaintance than a friend.

Barque said:

In some contexts, it could include friends and family too. For example in your post #5, if source no.3 was just "Acquaintance" instead of "Family/friend/acquaintance", I'd tick it if my source had been a relative or a friend.

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Thanks Barque. I didn't know that.

meijin said:

I think "Someone I know" alone can include famous people etc. (who don't know you).

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No, it isn't used that way. In the context of the OP, "someone I know" would be understood as "someone I know personally". We don't refer to celebrities who don't know us as "someone I know".

We could say "I know of him/her" to mean we've heard of that person.

I've just remembered talking about the same subject before in another thread, so I revisited it.
people I know personally

Having re-read the thread, Retired-Teacher's post (#7) and Copyright's post (#9) tell me that "people I know personally" is more accurate but sounds less natural than just "people I know". In the context above, however, I agree that no one would think the speaker was referring to a celebrity etc.