From the book
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordA “familiar” can be a close associate or intimate friend.
- In the Anatomy of MelancholyThe original medical anecdote turns on ordinary friendship.
- In this edition“Some of his familiars” becomes “some of his close friends” in the hellebore anecdote.
- A place to readold companions rejected after social advancement
Meaning
A “familiar” can be a close associate or intimate friend. Burton’s human “familiars” visit, accompany and assist people. In “familiar spirits,” however, the adjective marks an attending or companion relationship with alleged supernatural beings. The object or noun modified settles the immediate referent; the word alone does not turn every associate into a spirit. As an adjective it can also mean accustomed, common or readily understood. The family connects closeness, habitual association and knowledge, but those local senses must remain distinct.
“Too familiar” can imply an improper intimacy where the narrated acts supply that meaning. It need not mean sexual conduct merely because someone suspects it. Burton himself distinguishes friendly speech and laughter from the jealous observer’s accusation.
Use in the book
The original medical anecdote turns on ordinary friendship. Burton first recounts a printed case in which a reader mistakes the dose of hellebore and nearly poisons himself. He then gives an example “of mine own knowledge”: his unnamed friend finds a recipe in Brassivola and proposes to take hellebore itself. The accidental visit of his familiars prevents the danger which, Burton says, would otherwise have followed. The friends’ arrival belongs to the asserted narrative; the unrealized exposure to danger is conditional. The two cases are not one patient, and the first case’s confusion of weights must not be imported into the second.
Elsewhere the noun marks the surviving limits of social contact. Melancholic people are said seldom to visit friends “except some familiars”: the exception preserves contact with certain intimates within a description of withdrawal. In the regimen, the patient should be accompanied by the friends and familiars he most likes. That preference matters: the advice specifies congenial company, rather than company indiscriminately. In satire, an upstart scorns his old friends and familiars, while Catiline’s familiars are associates in rebellion. Closeness identifies the relationship without guaranteeing its moral worth.
Companionship can also become an image. The unrewarded scholar’s “familiar attendants” are the personified troubles listed in the following verse, rendered “constant companions.” In the earlier reforming fantasy, Crates is honoured as a “Lar familiaris,” a household guardian god, for settling disputes and overcoming vices. The Latin household association is more specific than ordinary friendship. Elsewhere intimacy enables confidential disclosure: Cicero longs for Atticus because his many acquaintances offer nobody with whom he can “familiarly breath”; the parallel margin says “suspirare familiariter,” sigh in confidence.
A conduct maxim advises being “affable to all but not familiar.” Its marginal “Nimia familiaritas parit contemptum” means that excessive familiarity breeds contempt. Courtesy is therefore distinguished from a degree of closeness thought to erode respect, without a sexual allegation. The modern body’s “overfamiliar” makes the excess explicit; in the original it is the Latin margin’s nimia that does so.
The spirit survey borrows the same social language. Spirits in Livonia are said to associate with people and perform menial work; Cardan’s friendly genii desire human company like dogs, whereas other spirits avoid it. A “familiarem dæmonem” allegedly instructs the exceptionally famous person. These are reported relationships, and Burton immediately rejects the expansive theory that assigns almost all private events and extraordinary achievements to such spirits. Familiarity describes the supposed attendance; it does not certify the beings or their powers.
The Latin comparative “Nihil familiarius,” nothing more common, instead concerns the reported prevalence of spirit sightings. In a later medical quarrel, Paracelsus’s opponents allege that devils were his “familiar companions,” with “dæmones familiares” in the margin. Burton closes by calling the exchange contention and railing, and leaves its dispute unsettled. The familiar-companion label belongs to the accusation.
Divine intimacy is likewise qualified by its narrator. Burton attacks people who claim to be familiar with God through visions and thereby profess knowledge reserved to God and his angels. Yet his parenthetic “familiar conference” between God and Moses presents a direct, intimate conversation affirmatively. In the water-spirit catalogue, Egeria is the being with whom Numa was “so familiar”: Burton places their mythological intimacy beside nymphs and fairies, without that clause itself asserting a sexual act. Caligula’s familiarity with Castor and Pollux is explicitly feigned in the story Burton attributes to Dio, as part of his discussion of political authority. The adjective identifies intimacy; claim, affirmation and pretense come from the surrounding assertions. The Moses passage also says that nothing is so familiar as apparitions in China, using familiar for common or prevalent. Its Ricci margin says that most priests have familiar demons: the priests possess the attendant spirits, and most must not become all.
Adjectival familiarity has a wider reach. Burton proposes to make difficult medical writing “more familiar and easie” for readers, while calling melancholy “familiar to all idle persons” describes its supposed prevalence among them. The latter is Burton’s broad historical generalization, not a present clinical rule. In jealousy, he criticizes the inference from a woman’s familiar speech to infidelity and allows room for acquaintance and friendship. The later Alcibiades narrative uses “too familiar” where the following assertion of a child explicitly establishes the sexual sense within the reported story. The degree word and the narrated conduct supply what the unqualified adjective does not.
Familiar can also mean already well known: the “familiar example” of Regulus illustrates conscience by an expected common reference. In medical discussion, white hellebore was once terrible but is “now familiar.” The following exclusions and cautions prevent familiarity from meaning safety. Conversely, familiarity may be something deliberately acquired. Premeditation is to “make them familiar,” even all kinds of calamities, so that their occurrence may trouble us less. Familiarity also figures as a cause of affection: animals raised together may love despite their opposed natures, and shared experience may unite people of differing characters, even when they still disagree among themselves. The animal discussion separately lists nurturing as another cause.
The adverb can prescribe routine use: Cyprian turpentine is to be “familiarly taken,” rendered “taken regularly.” Its Latin margin, “habeant familiarem,” similarly makes a medicine something habitually used. Body and margin give different schedules and retain their own qualifications; neither is a present-day recommendation.
Related entries
Entertain; Gossip; Daemon and genius; Demonic apparitions; Solitude; Jealousy; Hellebore; Incubus
Places to read
- · paragraph 7–9old companions rejected after social advancement
- · paragraph 22–24Catiline’s intimates and accomplices in Burton’s political satire
- · paragraph 27–29Crates as Lar familiaris, a household-guardian analogy for reform
- · paragraph 15–17making medical knowledge familiar and intelligible
- · paragraph 32–34the familiar or well-known Regulus example in practical reasoning
- · paragraph 46–48Nihil familiarius, the reported prevalence of spirit appearances
- · paragraph 1–8reported familiar spirits, service and friendliness
- · paragraph 11–14Numa’s intimacy with Egeria in the water-spirit catalogue
- · paragraph 6–10familiar instruction and the ensuing rejection of the larger scheme
- · paragraph 21–23familiar as habitual or prevalent
- · paragraph 1–4personified troubles as the scholar’s familiar attendants
- · paragraph 39–41the intimates exempted from social withdrawal
- · paragraph 39–42two distinct warnings against self-treatment from books
- · paragraph 11–13criticized claims of divine intimacy and privileged revelation
- · paragraph 36–40confidential breathing or sighing with a trusted friend, in body and margin
- · paragraph 27–37making calamities familiar through premeditation
- · paragraph 15–17affability without excessive familiarity and the Latin marginal maxim
- · paragraph 36–38white hellebore familiar after earlier terror, with continuing cautions
- · paragraph 15–17preferred friends and intimates in the regimen
- · paragraph 54–56Paracelsus’s alleged demonic familiar companions and Burton’s unresolved controversy
- · paragraph 58–60familiar/regular medicinal use and differing body/marginal qualifications
- · paragraph 12–14familiarity as a learned cause of animal affection, distinct from nurturing
- · paragraph 10–12shared experience and familiarity overcoming differences of character
- · paragraph 47–49social familiarity and unjust suspicion
- · paragraph 3–5excessive intimacy in the Alcibiades story
- · paragraph 18–21God’s familiar conference with Moses within the account of demonic speech
- Caligula’s feigned divine intimacy and political control
In this edition
“Some of his familiars” becomes “some of his close friends” in the hellebore anecdote. “Except some familiars” becomes “except a few intimates,” and “friends and familiars he most affects” becomes “friends and intimates he likes best.” In the former, few is the modern rendering’s narrowing of the original some, not an independently printed limit on the group’s size. The last alignment belongs to the whole phrase: likes best explains the verbal expression, not the noun familiar. In the political satire, “familiars and coadjutors” becomes “intimates and accomplices”; the criminal assistance belongs especially to the second noun and its context.
The rendering retains “familiar spirits,” but translates “speak or laugh familiarly” as “speaks or laughs freely.” “Too familiar” becomes “too intimate” in the sexual narrative. The commonplace and educational uses can retain familiar because their complements make the sense clear. These comparisons describe the supplied edition’s choices; the historical cases are not independently verified by their fluent modern rendering.
familiar · friends and familiars · local use 1
Printed “friends and familiars” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Friends and close companions whose old connection is now rejected.
Context: The newly elevated man scorns his former associates.
Source: original body
Source wording: scorn his old friends and familiars
familiar · familiars and coadjutors
Printed “familiars and coadjutors” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Intimate associates and helpers in the reported rebellion.
Context: Catiline’s associates; accomplices renders the helper term within a hostile political account.
Source: original body
Source wording: they were his familiars and coadjutors
familiar · more familiar and easie
Printed “more familiar and easie” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
More accessible or readily understood by readers.
Context: Burton states an aim for his own exposition.
Source: original body
Source wording: more familiar and easie for every mans capacity
familiar · familiar with them
Printed “familiar with them” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Friendly and accustomed to human company.
Context: Cardan’s account of some genii; the dog comparison expresses friendliness.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: very affable, and familiar with them, as Dogs are
Modern rendering: very friendly and familiar with people, like dogs
Word and construction: People supplies the referent of original them; friendly corresponds to affable, familiar remains familiar, and the dog comparison applies to the spirits’ manner towards humans.
familiar · local use 1
Printed “familiar” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Habitually present or prevalent among the named people.
Context: Burton’s historical generalization concerning melancholy; all is his quantifier.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: A disease familiar to all idle persons
Modern rendering: It is a disease familiar to all idle people
Word and construction: The modern rendering supplies It is to turn the original nominal continuation into a complete sentence. All is explicitly present in the original; familiarity describes the disease’s asserted prevalence.
familiar · some familiars
Printed “some familiars” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Some intimate friends or close associates.
Context: Exception to the statement that melancholic people seldom visit their friends.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: except some familiars
Modern rendering: except a few intimates
Word and construction: Familiars supplies intimates. The original some leaves the number unspecified; modern a few is an interpretive narrowing, not an explicit original quantifier.
familiar · some of his familiars
Printed “some of his familiars” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Some of the patient’s close friends or associates.
Context: Counterfactual unless-clause: the chance visit occurs; without it his indiscretion would have put him in danger. Actual resulting injury is not asserted.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: had not some of his familiars come to visit him by chance, he had by his indiscretion hazarded himself
Modern rendering: Had some of his close friends not happened to visit him, his indiscretion would have put him in danger
Word and construction: Original had not governs come; modern Had begins the clause and not is placed after friends. Both fragments refer to the same conditional chance visit.
familiar · friends and familiars · local use 2
Printed “friends and familiars” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Friends and intimate associates preferred by the patient.
Context: Burton’s regimen specifies the patient’s preferred companions; affects supplies likes.
Source: original body
Source wording: such friends and familiars he most affects
familiar · too familiar
Printed “too familiar” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Improperly intimate, here explicitly a sexual relationship.
Context: Alcibiades is agent; Timæa is Agis’s wife; the following child assertion fixes the local sense.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: he was too familiar with Timæa his wife, begetting a child of her
Modern rendering: Alcibiades became too intimate with Agis’s wife Timaea, fathering a child by her
Word and construction: Too supplies the excess; begetting a child supplies the sexual conduct. Alcibiades and Agis resolve original he and his from the surrounding narrative, rather than representing additional names printed within this original unit.
familiar · local use 2
Printed “familiar” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Well known.
Here: An example expected to be recognizable to the reader, rather than a person’s intimate associate.
Context: Burton illustrates the practical reasoning of conscience by a traditional story of fidelity to an oath.
Source: original body
Source wording: that familiar example of Regulus the Roman
familiar · familiar with God
Printed “familiar with God” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: On intimate terms with God.
Here: An asserted privileged relationship used to claim knowledge of salvation and the end of the world.
Context: Some people claim this knowledge; Burton makes their presumption a target of criticism rather than endorsing their revelations.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Some, by visions and revelations, take upon them to be familiar with God, and to be of privie counsell with him
Modern rendering: Some, through visions and revelations, claim intimacy with God and membership of his privy council
Word and construction: Take upon them supplies claim; familiar with God supplies intimacy with God. Privy-council membership belongs to the separate coordinated expression. Some remains the subject quantifier.
familiar · make them familiar
Printed “make them familiar” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Make them accustomed or well known to the mind.
Here: Premeditation is proposed to make future calamities less troubling by first becoming mentally acquainted with them.
Context: The counseled person does the mental preparation; calamities are its objects. May and less retain the limited hoped-for effect.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: To make them familiar, even all kinde of calamities, that when they happen, they may be lesse troublesome unto us
Modern rendering: Make them familiar—all kinds of calamities—so that when they happen they may trouble us less
Word and construction: All kinde of calamities identifies original them. The infinitival continuation becomes a modern imperative; may and the comparative less remain explicit, with no promise of eliminating distress.
familiar · affable to all but not familiar
Printed “affable to all but not familiar” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: affable to all but not familiar
Meaning: Friendly towards everyone without intimate familiarity.
Here: A conduct maxim separates general courtesy from excessively close or easy association.
Context: Prescriptive address to the reader; the margin’s nimia specifies excess. No sexual act is asserted.
Source: original body
Modern rendering: courteous to everyone, but not overfamiliar
Word and construction: Over- is supplied in the modern body, where the original says only not familiar. The separate Latin margin explicitly has nimia, excessive; that marginal evidence must not be mistaken for an extra English word in the original body.
familiar · local use 3
Printed “familiar” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Accustomed or no longer strange.
Here: White hellebore is described as familiar after earlier terror, without removing the ensuing cautions and exclusions.
Context: Historical medical comparison attributed to Pliny; Burton continues with restrictions and caution, not a statement of universal safety.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: It was indeed terrible in former times, as Pliny notes, but now familiar
Modern rendering: It was indeed “terrifying in former times,” as Pliny notes, but has now become familiar
Word and construction: Modern has now become supplies a finite verb for the original elliptical but now familiar; familiarity does not itself mean harmlessness.
familiar · familiar conference
Printed “familiar conference” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Direct, intimate conversation.
Here: A biblical model of direct divine conversation used parenthetically within Burton’s account of the Devil’s speech.
Context: Burton presents God’s communication with Moses affirmatively; the surrounding Devil remains a distinct agent.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: as God to Moses by familiar conference
Modern rendering: as God spoke directly and intimately to Moses
Word and construction: Original conference supplies conversation; modern spoke supplies a finite predicate to the elliptical comparison. Directly and intimately unpack familiar conference as a phrase, not two independent original modifiers.
familiar · familiar with Castor and Pollux
Printed “familiar with Castor and Pollux” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: On intimate terms with Castor and Pollux.
Here: An alleged ruler’s fabricated divine intimacy used to support political subjection.
Context: Fained explicitly marks Caligula’s pretense in the account attributed to Dio; the subsequent claim concerns control of the Romans.
Source: original body
Source wording: Caligula in Dion fained himself to be familiar with Castor and Pollux
familiar · nothing so familiar as apparitions
Printed “nothing so familiar as apparitions” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Nothing so common or prevalent as apparitions.
Here: A claim of the exceptional prevalence of apparitions and related phenomena in China within Burton’s account of demonic religious influence.
Context: Burton’s geographically bounded rhetorical generalization, not an independently verified measure of frequency; the sentence gives the Devil the active role in the surrounding account.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: in China nothing so familiar as apparitions, inspirations, oracles
Modern rendering: in China nothing is more familiar than apparitions, inspirations and oracles
Word and construction: The modern rendering supplies is and recasts so familiar as as more familiar than. Familiar here means common or prevalent, not an intimate associate. The geographical boundary in China and the three-item list remain.
familiar · so familiar
Printed “so familiar” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: So intimate or closely acquainted.
Here: Numa’s intimacy with Egeria, placed by Burton among the analogues to water nymphs and fairies.
Context: Burton recounts a mythological divine companionship; this clause does not itself assert sexual intercourse. The nearby alleged marriages and Hotherus story remain separate.
Source: original body
Source wording: Ægeria, with whom Numa was so familiar
familiar · familiar attendants
Printed “familiar attendants” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Constant or habitual companions.
Here: Personified disease, grief, care, toil, fear, hunger and poverty attend unrewarded scholars.
Context: Their refers to scholars; the following Latin and English verse identifies the attendants. This is personification, not a claim about particular human servants or spirits.
Source: original body
Source wording: Their familiar attendants are
familiar · familiar companions
Printed “familiar companions” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Intimate or attendant companions.
Here: Devils alleged to attend Paracelsus in his opponents’ hostile medical controversy.
Context: The charge continues Erastus and the Galenists’ attack. Burton follows it by saying they contend and rail, leaving the dispute unresolved and proceeding.
Source: original body
Source wording: divels his familiar companions
familiar daemon · familiarem dæmonem
Printed “familiarem dæmonem” (Latin; phrase).
Meaning: A familiar or attending demon/spirit; the Latin phrase is accusative.
Here: A familiar or attending spirit alleged to instruct an exceptional person.
Context: Claim inside a reported scheme, rejected in the next source unit.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: that had not familiarem dæmonem, to inform him
Modern rendering: without a familiar spirit to instruct him
Word and construction: The indexed phrase is Latin within a mixed English/Latin clause. A is supplied in the modern English; the original Latin has no indefinite article. Without recasts that had not; inform him supplies instruct him.
familiar daemon · familiares habent dæmones
Printed “familiares habent dæmones” (Latin; phrase).
Meaning: Have familiar or attendant demons.
Here: Familiar demons attributed to most priests in the Ricci margin on China.
Context: The marginal quotation is attributed to Ricci. Pleriq; qualifies sacerdotes as most priests, not all; the priests are the subject of habent and dæmones its object.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: familiares habent dæmones pleriq; sacerdotes
Modern rendering: most priests have familiar demons
Word and construction: Familiares modifies dæmones across habent: familiar demons is the object of have. Pleriq; sacerdotes supplies most priests as subject. This comparison uses the supplied editorial translation within the Burton-labelled note, not the modern body or a second primary witness. The indexed predicate omits that subject; its literal definition is therefore limited to have familiar or attendant demons.
Alignment scope: Original marginal clause and supplied translation within the accompanying note
Edition note: checked against isolated Latin quotation and following supplied editorial translation
familiar daemon · dæmones familiares
Printed “dæmones familiares” (Latin; phrase).
Printed form, Source wording, Original wording: dæmones familiares
Meaning: Familiar or attendant demons.
Here: The corresponding Latin marginal accusation against Paracelsus.
Context: The clause continues the hostile allegation after he had a demon as teacher; it is not Burton’s unqualified testimony.
Source: original marginal quotation
Modern rendering: demons as his familiars
Word and construction: Dæmones is modified by familiares. Modern as his familiars supplies as and his from the surrounding habuit construction and Paracelsus context; neither is separately printed in the indexed two-word phrase.
Edition note: checked against original quotation and supplied translation within the accompanying note
familiar spirit
Printed “familiar spirits” (English; phrase).
Attending spirits alleged to associate with humans and perform work.
Context: Boissard’s reported Livonian story; said to qualifies the beings’ activity.
Source: original body
Source wording: those familiar spirits, which are there said to be conversant with men
familiaris · Nihil familiarius
Printed “Nihil familiarius” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Nothing more common.
Here: A Latin comparative of prevalence within reports of spirit appearances, distinct from intimate social intercourse in the same unit.
Context: The wider claim is attributed to reports, Vives and travellers, with the West Indies and northern regions named; no independent frequency is established.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: Nihil familiarius quam in agris & urbibus spiritus videre, audire qui vetent, jubeant
Modern rendering: Nothing is more common than to see spirits in the countryside and towns, and to hear them forbidding and commanding
Word and construction: Nihil supplies nothing; familiarius is a comparative, more familiar/common. English is is supplied. Seeing and hearing spirits belong to the wider infinitival construction, not to the adjective alone.
familiaris · habeant familiarem
Printed “habeant familiarem” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Let them have it in familiar or regular use.
Here: A Latin familiaris construction applied to a medicine rather than to a companion.
Context: The marginal recommendation has different timing and frequency from the body: three hours, dinner or supper, three times weekly as appropriate, versus the body’s broader alternatives. Neither list is silently harmonized.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: Terebinthinam cypriam habeant familiarem
Modern rendering: Let them make regular use of Cyprian turpentine
Word and construction: Habeant supplies let them have, familiarem its accustomed-use relation; the modern make regular use is idiomatic. Cyprian turpentine comes from the separately included object Terebinthinam cypriam, not from familiarem itself.
Edition note: checked against original quotation and supplied translation within the accompanying note
familiaritas
Printed “Nimia familiaritas parit contemptum” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Literal meaning, Modern rendering: Excessive familiarity breeds contempt.
Here: The marginal maxim qualifies the advice to be affable without intimate familiarity.
Context: The Latin maxim makes excessive familiarity the grammatical subject and contempt its result; it accompanies Burton’s conduct advice.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: Nimia familiaritas parit contemptum.
Word and construction: Nimia supplies excessive, familiaritas the subject familiarity, parit breeds, and contemptum the object contempt. This is the supplied translation within the Burton-labelled note, not Burton’s original English body.
Alignment scope: Complete original marginal maxim and supplied editorial translation within the accompanying note
Edition note: checked against isolated original quotation and following supplied translation in the labelled note
familiariter
Printed “suspirare familiariter” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Sigh in intimate confidence.
Here: The original Latin marginal parallel makes sighing and confidential companionship explicit, alongside Burton’s different English breath wording.
Context: Cicero’s quoted first-person plural seeks a trusted confidant; possible action is governed by possimus.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: quocum suspirare familiariter aut jocari liberè possimus
Modern rendering: with whom we may sigh in confidence or joke freely
Word and construction: Suspirare supplies sigh, familiariter in confidence, and possimus we may/can; jocari liberè is the separate alternative joke freely. Keep the Latin sigh and English body breath distinct.
Edition note: checked against original quotation and supplied translation within the accompanying note
familiarity · local use 1
Printed “familiarity” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Familiar acquaintance or comfortable social association.
Context: Burton allows charitable interpretation of relationships rather than jealous confinement.
Source: original body
Source wording: familiarity, mutuall society, freindship
familiarity · local use 2
Printed “familiarity” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Acquaintance acquired through repeated association.
Here: Learned association is given as a cause of affection between animals of otherwise opposed natures and between animals and keepers.
Context: Burton’s fourth reported cause: the conditional example is a dog raised with a lion and bear. The next cause concerns nurturing and remains distinct.
Source: original body
Source wording: Fourthly, for custome, use, and familiarity
familiarity · local use 3
Printed “familiarity” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.
Meaning: Acquaintance acquired through repeated association.
Here: Shared circumstances can unite people despite different dispositions, even when they still disagree with each other.
Context: May and many times limit the generalization; the ensuing examples include shared study, danger, marriage and opposition to a third party.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: affability, custome and familiarity, may convert nature many times, though they be different in manners
Modern rendering: friendliness, habit and familiarity can often change nature, despite differences of character
Word and construction: May convert and many times become can often change; the modal and frequency limitation remain. The people referred to by they are supplied by the surrounding account.
familiarly · speak or laugh familiarly
Printed “speak or laugh familiarly” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Speak or laugh freely in social company.
Context: The jealous observer infers misconduct; Burton challenges that inference.
Source: original body
Source wording: if she speak or laugh familiarly with such or such men
familiarly · familiarly breath
Printed “familiarly breath” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Breathe or speak in intimate confidence.
Here: Cicero’s need for a trusted friend with whom he can unburden himself, beyond having many acquaintances.
Context: Burton reports Cicero addressing Atticus; the speaker says none of his numerous present acquaintances supplies that trust.
Source: original body
Source wording, Original wording: with whom I dare familiarly breath, or freely jest
Modern rendering: with whom I dare breathe freely in confidence or joke without restraint
Word and construction: Familiarly contributes in confidence to the metaphorical breathe expression; freely jest separately becomes joke without restraint. The modern freely attached to breathe explicates ease of intimate disclosure.
familiarly · familiarly taken
Printed “familiarly taken” (English; lemma). Attestation: phrase.
Meaning: Taken regularly or habitually.
Here: Regular medicinal use of Cyprian turpentine in a historical regimen, under the surrounding if-need-be restriction.
Context: The recommendation belongs to Cnemander and Montanus; its dose and timing remain historical claims, not present-day instructions.
Source: original body
Source wording: which they would have familiarly taken
lar familiaris
Printed “Lar familiaris” (Latin; phrase).
Meaning: A household guardian god.
Here: Crates is described as honoured like a household guardian for settling quarrels and opposing vices.
Context: The Apuleius margin supports Burton’s reforming-philosopher analogy; Crates, not a reported attendant demon, is the person honoured.
Source: original marginal quotation
Source wording, Original wording: Lar familiaris inter homines ætatis suæ cultus est
Modern rendering: He was honoured among the people of his age as a household god
Word and construction: Lar supplies the guardian god and familiaris its household association. Modern He supplies Crates from context, while as expresses the predicative comparison. The English is the supplied note translation, not an original English marginal sentence.
Edition note: checked against original quotation and supplied translation within the accompanying note