intimate
n. countablen. a very close friend who you know and trust deeply. This person is usually someone you share your private thoughts and secrets with.
n. a person with whom one has a very close and personal relationship. Often used to describe a confidant or a long-term companion with whom one shares private information.
She only shares her true feelings with a few close intimates.
The retired professor preferred the company of his old intimates over the loud crowds at university parties.
The biography draws heavily on private letters sent to the author's circle of intimates, revealing a vulnerability that was never apparent in his public speeches.
Borrowed from Latin intimātus, the perfect passive participle of intimō (“to put or bring into, to impress, to make familiar”) (see -ate (adjective forming suffix)), from intimus (“inmost, innermost, most intimate”), superlative of intus (“within”), from in (“in”); see interior.
From a substantivization of the above adjective, see -ate (noun-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.
From Latin intimātus, see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more. Cognate with French intimer.
Commonly used in the plural form ('intimates') to describe a small, exclusive social circle.