Mr. Robbins has become nearly as familiar a figure at the prison as the warden himself.
At the peak of his career, Barnum's own appearance was nearly as familiar to the public as the exhibits he promoted.
On Milwaukee's impoverished North Side, the mover's name is nearly as familiar as McDonald's, because Eagle often accompanies sheriffs on evictions.
Like so many people of my generation, I grew up in a world in which Hawking's name was nearly as familiar as Einstein's.
For years, suburban residents traveled to Manhattan salons to be coifed by hairdressers whose names are nearly as familiar as those of their celebrity clients.
But in the half-century since a slight, sallow man named Lee Harvey Oswald killed President John F. Kennedy, so much continues to be said about the assassination that the various conspiracy devices and theories are nearly as familiar as the tragic event itself.
We're most likely to cave to a toy request at the end of a long shopping trip, so nearly every familiar toy line offers something — a tiny package of plastic figures, a branded flashlight, a pack of cards — to cluster up at the cash registers when we're most prey to "decision fatigue".
To the broader public Mr. Kasliwal's name was not nearly as familiar as those of Cartier or Harry Winston, but his family-owned emporium, the Gem Palace, has for decades been a valued secret passed along via word of mouth by international connoisseurs.
By E. J. Kahn The face of Theodor Seuss Geisel — an arresting one, with soft eyes and a long, beaky nose — is not nearly as familiar as that of Santa Claus, yet its owner is an equally formidable contender for the adulation of many children.
Dr. Blanco wasn't nearly as familiar to voters as the other four candidates, but in the wake of Mr. Rivera — and in a year when candidates at every level stumbled over themselves to say the word "change" more than their opponents did — unfamiliarity was a high compliment.
