meet
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: mēt
ipa: /miːt/
ipa: /mit/
rhymes: -iːt
homophone: meat
homophone: mete
Forms: form: meets
form: meeting
form: met
form: met
Etymology: From Middle English meten, from Old English mētan (“to meet, find, encounter”), from Proto-West Germanic *mōtijan (“to meet”), from Proto-Germanic *mōtijaną (“to meet”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (“to come, meet”).
Cognates
Cognate with Scots met, mete, meit (“to meet”), North Frisian meet, mätje, möt (“to meet”), West Frisian mette, moetsje (“to meet”), Dutch ontmoeten (“to meet”), Low German möten (“to meet”), Danish møde (“to meet”), Elfdalian my̨öt (“to meet”), Faroese møta (“to meet”), Icelandic mæta (“to meet”), Norwegian Bokmål møte (“to meet”), Norwegian Nynorsk møta, møte (“to meet”), Swedish möta (“to meet”). Related to moot.
Senses: examples: text: Fancy meeting you here! Guess who I met at the supermarket today?
text: Yesterday, upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away[…]
ref: 1899, Hughes Mearns, Antigonish:
glosses: To make contact (with someone) while in proximity.
To come face to face with by accident; to encounter.
examples: text: Let's meet at the station at 9 o'clock.
text: With a little manœuvring they contrived to meet on the doorstep which was […] in a boiling stream of passers-by, hurrying business people speeding past in a flurry of fumes and dust in the bright haze.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 10, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
glosses: To make contact (with someone) while in proximity.
To come face to face with someone by arrangement.
examples: text: I'm pleased to meet you! I'd like you to meet a colleague of mine.
text: I met my husband through a mutual friend at a party. It wasn't love at first sight; in fact, we couldn't stand each other at first!
text: José, I don't think you've met my friend Maria.
text: Captain Edward Carlisle[…]felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze,[…]; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meet so superb a woman as this under handicap so hard.
ref: 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
glosses: To make contact (with someone) while in proximity.
To get acquainted with someone.
examples: text: I met with them several times. The government ministers met today to start the negotiations.
text: At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors.[…]In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.
ref: 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
qualifier: Of groups
glosses: To come together.
To gather for a formal or social discussion; to hold a meeting.
examples: text: Sir said Epynegrys is þᵗ the rule of yow arraunt knyghtes for to make a knyght to Iuste will he or nyll
As for that sayd Dynadan make the redy
for here is for me
And there with al they spored theyr horses & mett to gyders soo hard that Epynegrys smote doune sir Dynadan
ref: 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter LV, in Le Morte Darthur, book X:
text: Weapons more violent, when next we meet,
May serve to better us and worse our foes.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: The dispatches[…] also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies. Having lectured the Arab world about democracy for years, its collusion in suppressing freedom was undeniable as protesters were met by weaponry and tear gas made in the west, employed by a military trained by westerners.
ref: 2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 18:
qualifier: Of groups
glosses: To come together.
To come together in conflict.
examples: text: England and Holland will meet in the final.
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
qualifier: Of groups
glosses: To come together.
To play a match.
examples: text: The two streets meet at a crossroad half a mile away.
text: Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do
ref: 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
glosses: To make physical or perceptual contact.
To converge and finally touch or intersect.
examples: text: The right wing of the car met the column in the garage, leaving a dent.
glosses: To make physical or perceptual contact.
To touch or hit something while moving.
examples: text: The carpet meets the wall at this side of the room. The forest meets the sea along this part of the coast.
glosses: To make physical or perceptual contact.
To adjoin, be physically touching.
examples: He met every objection to the trip with another reason I should go.
glosses: To make physical or perceptual contact.
To respond to (an argument etc.) with something equally convincing; to refute.
examples: text: This proposal meets my requirements. The company agrees to meet the cost of any repairs.
text: Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.[…]Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster. Clever financial ploys are what have made billionaires of the industry’s veterans. “Operational improvement” in a portfolio company has often meant little more than promising colossal bonuses to sitting chief executives if they meet ambitious growth targets. That model is still prevalent today.
ref: 2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:
glosses: To satisfy; to comply with.
examples: 1967, Northern Ireland. Parliament. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) House of Commons Official Report
In this instance he has chosen an accountant. I suppose that it will be possible for an accountant to make the figures meet.
glosses: To balance or come out correct.
examples: text: The eye met a horrid sight. He met his fate.
text: Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first.
ref: 1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC:
text: […] And all we met was fair and good,
⁠And all was good that Time could bring, […]
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXIII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 40:
glosses: To perceive; to come to a knowledge of; to have personal acquaintance with; to experience; to suffer.
examples: text: ‘I’m planning a sort of fabliau comparing this place with a fascist state,’ said Sampson, ‘sort of Animal Farm meets Arturo Ui . . .’
ref: 1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section I, page 19:
glosses: To be mixed with, to be combined with aspects of.
Derived terms: sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: bemeet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: boy meets girl
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: countermeet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: counter-meet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: hail-fellow-well-met
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: hail fellow well met
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: have you met me
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: make both ends meet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: make ends meet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meetable
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet and greet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet-and-greet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet a sticky end
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meetaversary
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet cute
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet-cute
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meetee
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meeten
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet halfway
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet me at McDonald's
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet me at McDonald's haircut
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet-meat merger
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet-me room
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet one's doom
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet one's end
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet one's maker
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet one's match
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet one's Waterloo
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet someone where they are
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet up
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: meet with
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: mismeet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: more than meets the eye
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: never meet your heroes
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: never the twain shall meet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: nice to meet you
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: one should never meet one's heroes
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: pleased to meet you
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: remeet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: the rubber meets the road
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: until we meet again
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: watersmeet
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: well met
sense: Terms derived from meet [verb]
word: when two Sundays meet