Virtuous English AcademyRelationships & Society — B2 English Vocabulary
This B2 vocabulary list gathers 50 upper-intermediate English words about relationships & society — bonds, conflict and human connection. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using relationships & society words in English
This list sits at the formal end of relationship vocabulary, where the prepositions become less guessable. Confide takes in, rapport takes with, and estranged takes from — none of which can be worked out from the meaning. The page also covers intimate, a word whose range in English is much wider than learners usually assume, and reciprocal, which is one of the most useful adjectives in social writing.
What to watch out for
Confide in, rapport with, estranged from
These prepositions are fixed. You confide in somebody — not to — meaning you tell them something private. You build rapport with a person. You become estranged from a relative. Add affectionate towards and supportive of, and you have most of the patterns this topic needs.
Intimate is broader than it looks
In English, intimate covers close personal friendship, detailed knowledge and small-scale atmosphere as well as physical closeness: an intimate friend, an intimate knowledge of the subject, an intimate restaurant. It is not primarily a euphemism, and treating it as one narrows your range considerably. As a verb with different stress it means to hint at something.
Reciprocal, camaraderie, matrimony
Reciprocal means given and received in return by both sides: a reciprocal arrangement. The verb is reciprocate. Camaraderie means the warm loyalty within a group and keeps its French spelling — note the a in the middle, not comaraderie. Matrimony is a formal or legal word for marriage and would sound archaic in conversation.
Words learners mix up
English grades relationships finely, and the grading is in the vocabulary rather than the grammar. These three clusters cover how much you like someone, how badly you have fallen out with them, and what you actually call them.
How strong is the feeling?
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| fond of | Mild, warm, long-standing liking. The weakest word here, and it needs of. | She is very fond of her younger cousins. |
| affectionate | Showing warmth openly, in touch and manner. Describes behaviour more than feeling. | An affectionate letter, signed with love. |
| adoration | Intense love bordering on worship. Often used of a child for a parent, or a crowd for a performer. | He gazed at her with undisguised adoration. |
| infatuation | Overwhelming attraction that the speaker considers shallow and temporary. Always mildly critical. | It was an infatuation, and it lasted a month. |
Only infatuation carries a judgement, and it is the writer’s judgement, not the lover’s — nobody describes their own feelings as an infatuation at the time. Note the preposition: fond of, infatuated with, affectionate towards.
Falling out: four stages of a broken relationship
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| fall out | The everyday phrasal verb for quarrelling and stopping speaking. Takes with, and separable only by the person: fall out with someone over something. | They fell out over money years ago. |
| grudge | The resentment you keep afterwards. Countable, and something you hold or bear rather than feel. | He still bears a grudge about the promotion. |
| animosity | Open hostility between people. Uncountable, and more formal than the others — common in reporting. | There is real animosity between the two departments. |
| estrangement | The settled state of no longer being in contact at all, especially within a family. The adjective is estranged from. | A decade of estrangement ended with one phone call. |
| feud | A long, bitter quarrel with rounds of retaliation, often between families or groups rather than two people. | A bitter feud that outlived both founders. |
The reverse journey has its own word: reconciliation, the noun for repairing the relationship, and reunite for coming back together physically. You are reconciled with a person and you reconcile a difference.
What do you actually call them?
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| acquaintance | Someone you know slightly and would greet. The adjective acquainted is used with with: we are acquainted with each other. | A business acquaintance, not really a friend. |
| peer | Someone of the same age, rank or standing as you. Nothing to do with liking — it is about position. | Teenagers are highly sensitive to peer approval. |
| confidant | The person you tell your private things to. Note the spelling and the near-invisible final t. | His sister was his only confidant. |
| kindred spirit | Someone who thinks and feels as you do. Almost always in this fixed phrase. | They recognised each other instantly as kindred spirits. |
The trap here is confidant against confident. A confidant is a person; confident is an adjective meaning self-assured. They differ by one letter and no spellchecker will catch the swap: she confided in her confidant, she felt confident.
Collocations that sound natural
Several nouns in this topic take one verb and refuse all the plausible alternatives. You build rapport and hold a grudge, and no other verb will do.
rapport
build rapportestablish a rapportan instant rapportrapport with
Never make rapport. Note the pronunciation — the final t is silent, ra-POR, because the word is French.
grudge
hold a grudgebear a grudgenurse a grudgea long-standing grudge
All three verbs mean keeping the resentment alive; nurse suggests you are enjoying it slightly.
solace
find solace inseek solaceoffer solacea source of solace
Uncountable comfort in sorrow. The preposition after find is always in: she found solace in her work.
allegiance
swear allegiancepledge allegianceswitch allegianceallegiance to
reconciliation
seek reconciliationa lasting reconciliationreconciliation betweena gesture of reconciliation
feud
a bitter feuda family feuda long-running feudfeud with
The adjective is nearly always bitter or long-running. A short, mild feud is a contradiction in terms.
Formal, neutral or informal?
This topic contains three words that will make a British listener react, and not in the way a learner expects. Knowing which are legal, which are literary and which are political is most of the skill.
- comradePolitically loadedHistorically just a companion, but a century of communist usage has attached it firmly to left-wing politics. Calling a colleague comrade in Britain will be heard as a joke or a political statement — the neutral words are colleague and workmate.
- wedlockArchaic · legalSurvives almost only in the phrase born out of wedlock, meaning to unmarried parents, and even that now sounds dated and judgemental. Never used of a living marriage.
- matrimonyFormal · ceremonialThe word of wedding services and legal documents — holy matrimony, matrimonial home. In ordinary conversation the word is simply marriage.
- cohabitFormal · officialLiving together as a couple without being married. Belongs to forms, censuses and legal writing; people themselves say we live together.
- gregariousNeutral · formalNaturally sociable and happiest in company. A compliment, and used of people and animals alike. Not a synonym for talkative.
- mingleNeutral · socialTo move around a gathering talking to different people. Strongly associated with parties and receptions: mingle with the guests.
- kindredLiteraryAlmost never appears outside kindred spirit. As a plain adjective meaning related, it now reads as deliberately old-fashioned.
- close-knitNeutralHyphenated, and used of families and communities whose members support each other: a close-knit village. Always approving.
Sentences to try
Four frames at the formal end of the register. The prepositions are the point of each one.
- She has nobody she can confide in.
- He built an easy rapport with the whole team.
- They have been estranged from each other for years.
- The agreement is reciprocal and binds both sides equally.
Questions about relationships & society vocabulary
Is it "confide in" or "confide to"?
Confide in when you mean trusting someone with something private: She confided in her sister. Confide to does exist but is rarer and takes the secret as its object rather than the person: He confided his fears to his diary. The everyday pattern is the first. Other fixed prepositions in this topic are worth learning alongside it: rapport with, estranged from, supportive of, affectionate towards and reconcile with.
Does "intimate" always have a romantic meaning?
No. In English, intimate covers a much wider range than learners usually expect. It describes close friendship — an intimate friend — detailed and thorough knowledge — an intimate understanding of the process — and a small, warm atmosphere: an intimate venue. The physical sense exists but is only one branch. There is also a verb, stressed differently on the last syllable, meaning to suggest something indirectly: He intimated that he might resign.
How do you spell "camaraderie"?
The tricky part is the second vowel: it is cam-a-raderie, not comaraderie, even though the related word comrade has an o. The word came into English from French and kept its French shape. It means the warm sense of friendship and mutual loyalty within a group, particularly one that has shared difficulty, and it is uncountable: a great sense of camaraderie, never camaraderies.