meet
English
editPronunciation
edit- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: mēt, IPA(key): /miːt/
Audio (Received Pronunciation): (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /mit/
Audio (General American): (file) - Rhymes: -iːt
- Homophones: meat, mete
Etymology 1
editFrom 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”).
Verb
editmeet (third-person singular simple present meets, present participle meeting, simple past and past participle met)
- To make contact (with someone) while in proximity.
- To come face to face with by accident; to encounter.
- Fancy meeting you here! Guess who I met at the supermarket today?
- 1899, Hughes Mearns, Antigonish:
- 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 […]
- To come face to face with someone by arrangement.
- Let's meet at the station at 9 o'clock.
- 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 10, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
- 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.
- To get acquainted with someone.
- I'm pleased to meet you! I'd like you to meet a colleague of mine.
- 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!
- 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- 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.
- To come face to face with by accident; to encounter.
- (Of groups) To come together.
- To gather for a formal or social discussion; to hold a meeting.
- I met with them several times. The government ministers met today to start the negotiations.
- 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
- 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.
- To come together in conflict.
- 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter LV, in Le Morte Darthur, book X (in Middle English):
- 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- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
- 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:
- Weapons more violent, when next we meet,
May serve to better us and worse our foes.
- 2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 18:
- 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.
- (sports) To play a match.
- England and Holland will meet in the final.
- To gather for a formal or social discussion; to hold a meeting.
- To make physical or perceptual contact.
- To converge and finally touch or intersect.
- The two streets meet at a crossroad half a mile away.
- 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- 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
- To touch or hit something while moving.
- The right wing of the car met the column in the garage, leaving a dent.
- To adjoin, be physically touching.
- The carpet meets the wall at this side of the room. The forest meets the sea along this part of the coast.
- (transitive) To respond to (an argument etc.) with something equally convincing; to refute.
- He met every objection to the trip with another reason I should go.
- To converge and finally touch or intersect.
- To satisfy; to comply with.
- This proposal meets my requirements. The company agrees to meet the cost of any repairs.
- 2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:
- 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.
- (intransitive) To balance or come out correct.
- 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.
- 1967, Northern Ireland. Parliament. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) House of Commons Official Report
- To perceive; to come to a knowledge of; to have personal acquaintance with; to experience; to suffer.
- The eye met a horrid sight. He met his fate.
- 1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: Printed for J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC:
- Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first.
- 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XXIII, page 40:
- […] And all we met was fair and good,
And all was good that Time could bring, […]
- To be mixed with, to be combined with aspects of.
- 1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, →OCLC, section I, page 19:
- ‘I’m planning a sort of fabliau comparing this place with a fascist state,’ said Sampson, ‘sort of Animal Farm meets Arturo Ui . . .’
Usage notes
editIn the sense "come face to face with someone by arrangement", meet is sometimes used with the preposition with. Nonetheless, some state that as a transitive verb in the context "to come together by chance or arrangement", meet (as in meet (someone)) does not require a preposition between verb and object; the phrase meet with (someone) is deemed incorrect. See also meet with.
Derived terms
edit- boy meets girl
- counter-meet
- hail fellow well met
- hail-fellow-well-met
- have you met me
- make both ends meet
- make ends meet
- meet and greet
- meet-and-greet
- meet a sticky end
- meet cute, meet-cute
- meet halfway
- meet me at McDonald's
- meet me at McDonald's haircut
- meet-meat merger
- meet-me room
- meet one's doom
- meet one's end
- meet one's maker
- meet one's match
- meet one's Waterloo
- meet someone where they are
- meet up
- meet with
- more than meets the eye
- never meet your heroes
- never the twain shall meet
- nice to meet you
- one should never meet one's heroes
- pleased to meet you
- the rubber meets the road
- until we meet again
- well met
- when two Sundays meet
Translations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Noun
editmeet (plural meets)
- (sports) A sports competition, especially for track and field or swimming.
- swim meet
- 2009, Alexandria Mangas, Janet Hommel Mangas, Oxygen for the Swimmer, Xulon Press, →ISBN, page 91:
- Everyone has to experience their first swim meet. They have to get through their first race, their first DQ (disqualification), and their first miss/scratch of an event. Like all swimmers, my first swim meet was nerve-wracking.
- (hunting) A gathering of riders, horses and hounds for foxhunting; a field meet for hunting.
- (rail transport) A meeting of two trains in opposite directions on a single track, when one is put into a siding to let the other cross.
- Antonym: pass
- (informal) A meeting.
- OK, let's arrange a meet with Tyler and ask him.
- 2002, George Pelecanos, “Cleaning Up”, in The Wire, season 1, episode 12 (television production):
- You feel me? You use these phones to set up a meet, go to that meet… and talk face to face, period.
- 2004, Matthew Weiner, “Rat Pack”, in The Sopranos, season 5, episode 2 (television production):
- So what do you wanna do? I wanna be absolutely fucking sure. That's what I wanna do. We arrange a meet. I'll feel him out a little bit.
- 2012 February 23, Joe Kloc, “The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks”, in Wired[1], →ISSN:
- Rosen assured Cregger that he had left no paper trail in bringing the rock into the States. Pretending to be reassured, Cregger agreed to a location for a meet: Tuna’s, a small restaurant and margarita bar off West Dixie highway in North Miami Beach.
- (algebra) The greatest lower bound, an operation between pairs of elements in a lattice, denoted by the symbol ∧.
- Antonym: join
Derived terms
editEtymology 2
editFrom Middle English mete, imete, from Old English ġemǣte (“suitable, having the same measurements”), from the Proto-Germanic *gamētijaz, *mētiz (“reasonable; estimable”) (cognate with Dutch meten (“measure”), German gemäß (“suitable”) etc.), itself from collective prefix *ga- + Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure”).
Alternative forms
editAdjective
editmeet (comparative meeter, superlative meetest)
- (archaic) Suitable; right; proper.
- c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 311:
- It ſeemes not meete, nor wholeſome to my place, / To be producted, (as, if I ſtay, I ſhall,) / Againſt the Moore. […]
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 2:18:
- And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him an helpe meet for him.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 8:26:
- And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us?
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter XXVII, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 131:
- […] it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set down who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of them belonged.
- 1958, T[erence] H[anbury] White, chapter VIII, in The Once and Future King, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, book I (The Sword in the Stone):
- The mountain birds are sweeter,
But the valley birds are fatter,
And so we deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
- (obselete) Submissive; passive.
Derived terms
editTranslations
editReferences
edit- Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “meet”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- “meet”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Anagrams
editDutch
editPronunciation
editEtymology 1
editNoun
editmeet f (plural meten, diminutive meetje n)
- the finish line in a competition
Etymology 2
editVerb
editmeet
- inflection of meten:
Anagrams
editFinnish
editVerb
editmeet
Synonyms
editLatin
editVerb
editmeet
Middle English
editNoun
editmeet
- Alternative form of mete (“food”)
North Frisian
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editFrom Old Frisian mēta, from Proto-West Germanic *mōtijan.
Pronunciation
edit- (Föhr-Amrum) IPA(key): [meːt]
Verb
editmeet
- (Föhr-Amrum) to meet, encounter
Conjugation
editinfinitive I | meet | |
---|---|---|
infinitive II | (tu) meeten | |
past participle | meet | |
imperative singular | meet | |
imperative plural | meet’m | |
present | past | |
1st singular | meet | määt |
2nd singular | määtst | määtst |
3rd singular | määt | määt |
plural | meet | määt |
perfect | pluperfect | |
1st singular | haa meet | hed meet |
2nd singular | heest meet | hedst meet |
3rd singular | hee meet | hed meet |
plural | haa meet | hed meet |
future (skel) | future (wel) | |
1st singular | skal meet | wal meet |
2nd singular | skääl meet | wääl meet |
3rd singular | skal meet | wal meet |
plural | skel meet | wel meet |
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/iːt
- Rhymes:English/iːt/1 syllable
- English terms with homophones
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *meh₂d- (meet)
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- Middle English terms with quotations
- en:Sports
- English transitive verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Hunting
- en:Rail transportation
- English informal terms
- en:Algebra
- English adjectives
- English terms with archaic senses
- English irregular verbs
- English reciprocal verbs
- Dutch terms with IPA pronunciation
- Dutch terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:Dutch/eːt
- Rhymes:Dutch/eːt/1 syllable
- Dutch terms derived from Latin
- Dutch lemmas
- Dutch nouns
- Dutch nouns with plural in -en
- Dutch feminine nouns
- Dutch non-lemma forms
- Dutch verb forms
- Finnish non-lemma forms
- Finnish verb forms
- Finnish colloquial verb forms
- Latin non-lemma forms
- Latin verb forms
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English nouns
- North Frisian terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- North Frisian terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- North Frisian terms inherited from Old Frisian
- North Frisian terms derived from Old Frisian
- North Frisian terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- North Frisian terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- North Frisian terms with IPA pronunciation
- North Frisian lemmas
- North Frisian verbs
- Föhr-Amrum North Frisian