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Webster 1913 Edition

Meet

Meet

(mēt)
,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Met
(mĕt)
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Meeting
.]
[OE.
meten
, AS.
mētan
, fr.
mōt
,
gemōt
, a meeting; akin to OS.
mōtian
to meet, Icel.
maeta
, Goth.
gamōtjan
. See
Moot
,
Verb.
T.
]
1.
To join, or come in contact with; esp., to come in contact with by approach from an opposite direction; to come upon or against, front to front, as distinguished from contact by following and overtaking.
2.
To come in collision with; to confront in conflict; to encounter hostilely;
as, they
met
the enemy and defeated them; the ship
met
opposing winds and currents.
3.
To come into the presence of without contact; to come close to; to intercept; to come within the perception, influence, or recognition of;
as, to
meet
a train at a junction; to
meet
carriages or persons in the street; to
meet
friends at a party; sweet sounds
met
the ear.
His daughter came out to
meet
him.
Judg. xi. 34.
4.
To perceive; to come to a knowledge of; to have personal acquaintance with; to experience; to suffer;
as, the eye
met
a horrid sight; he
met
his fate.
Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst,
Which
meets
contempt, or which compassion first.
Pope.
5.
To come up to; to be even with; to equal; to match; to satisfy; to ansver;
as, to
meet
one’s expectations; the supply
meets
the demand.
To meet half way
,
literally, to go half the distance between in order to meet (one); hence, figuratively, to yield or concede half of the difference in order to effect a compromise or reconciliation with.

Meet

,
Verb.
T.
1.
To come together by mutual approach; esp., to come in contact, or into proximity, by approach from opposite directions; to join; to come face to face; to come in close relationship;
as, we
met
in the street; two lines
meet
so as to form an angle.
O, when
meet
now
Such pairs in love and mutual honor joined !
Milton.
2.
To come together with hostile purpose; to have an encounter or conflict.
Weapons more violent, when next we
meet
,
May serve to better us and worse our foes.
Milton.
3.
To assemble together; to congregate;
as, Congress
meets
on the first Monday of December
.
They . . . appointed a day to
meet
together.
2. Macc. xiv. 21.
4.
To come together by mutual concessions; hence, to agree; to harmonize; to unite.
To meet with
.
(a)
To light upon; to find; to come to; – often with the sense of unexpectedness.

We
met with
many things worthy of observation.
Bacon.
(b)
To join; to unite in company.
Shak.
(c)
To suffer unexpectedly;
as, to
meet with
a fall; to
meet with
a loss
.
(d)
To encounter; to be subjected to.
Prepare
to meet with
more than brutal fury
From the fierce prince.
Rowe.
(e)
To obviate.
[Obs.]
Bacon.

Meet

,
Noun.
An assembling together; esp., the assembling of huntsmen for the hunt; also, the persons who so assemble, and the place of meeting.

Meet

,
Adj.
[OE.
mete
fitting, moderate, scanty, AS.
mǣte
moderate; akin to
gemet
fit, meet,
metan
to mete, and G.
mässig
moderate,
gemäss
fitting. See
Mete
.]
Suitable; fit; proper; appropriate; qualified; convenient.
It was
meet
that we should make merry.
Luke xv. 32.
To be meet with
,
to be even with; to be equal to.
[Obs.]

Meet

(mēt)
,
adv.
Meetly.
[Obs.]
Shak.

Webster 1828 Edition

Meet

MEET

,
Adj.
[L. convenio.] Fit; suitable; proper; qualified; convenient; adapted, as to a use or purpose.
Ye shall pass over armed before your brethren, the children of Israel, all that are meet for the war. Deut.3.
It was meet that we should make merry--Luke 15.
Bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Matt.3.

MEET

,
Verb.
T.
pret. and pp. met. [Gr. with.]
1.
To come together, approaching in opposite or different directions; to come face to face; as, to meet a man in the road.
His daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances. Judges 11.
2.
To come together in any place; as, we met many strangers at the levee.
3.
To come together in hostility; to encounter. The armies met on the plains of Pharsalia.
4.
To encounter unexpectedly.
5.
To come together in extension; to come in contact; to join. The line A meets the line B and forms an angle.
6.
To come to; to find; to light on; to receive. The good man meets his reward; the criminal in due time meets the punishment he deserves.
Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first.

MEET

,
Verb.
I.
To come together or to approach near, or into company with. How pleasant it is for friends to meet on the road; still more pleasant to meet in a foreign country.
1.
To come together in hostility; to encounter. The armies met at Waterloo, and decided the fate of Buonaparte.
2.
To assemble; to congregate. The council met at 10 o'clock. The legislature will meet on the first Wednesday in the month.
3.
To come together by being extended; to come in contact; to join. Two converging lines will meet in a point.
To meet with; to light on; to find; to come to; often with the sense of an unexpected event.
We met with many things worthy of observation.
1.
To join; to unite in company.
Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.
2.
To suffer unexpectedly; as, to meet with a fall; to meet with a loss.
3.
To encounter; to engage in opposition.
Royal mistress,
Prepare to meet with more than brutal fury
From the fierce prince.
4.
To obviate; a Latinism.
To meet half way, to approach from an equal distance and meet; metaphorically, to make mutual and equal concessions, each party renouncing some pretensions.

Definition 2024

meet

meet

See also: mėėt

English

Pronunciation

  • enPR: mēt, IPA(key): /miːt/
  • Rhymes: -iːt
  • Homophones: meat, mete

Verb

meet ‎(third-person singular simple present meets, present participle meeting, simple past and past participle met)

  1. (heading) Of individuals: to make personal contact.
    1. 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 […]
    2. To come face to face with someone by arrangement.
      Let's meet at the station at 9 o'clock.  Shall we meet at 8 p.m in our favorite chatroom?‎
      • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 10, in The China Governess:
        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.
    3. 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!‎
      • 1915, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price, chapterI:
        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.
    4. (Ireland) To French kiss someone.
  2. (heading) Of groups: to gather or oppose.
    1. To gather for a formal or social discussion.
      I met with them several times.  The government ministers met today to start the negotiations.‎
      • 1893, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate, chapter III:
        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.
    2. To come together in conflict.
      • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter lv, in Le Morte Darthur, book X:
        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
      • John Milton (1608-1674)
        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.
    3. (sports) To play a match.
      England and Holland will meet in the final.‎
  3. (heading) To make physical or perceptual contact.
    1. To converge and finally touch or intersect.
      The two streets meet at a crossroad half a mile away.‎
      • 1915, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price, chapterI:
        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.
    2. To touch or hit something while moving.
      The right wing of the car met the column in the garage, leaving a dent.‎
    3. 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.‎
  4. 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.
  5. 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.‎
    • Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
      Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst, / Which meets contempt, or which compassion first.
Usage notes

In the sense "come face to face with someone by arrangement", meet is sometimes used with the preposition with in American English.

Derived terms
Translations

Noun

meet ‎(plural meets)

  1. A sports competition, especially for athletics or swimming.
  2. A gathering of riders, their horses and hounds for the purpose of foxhunting.
  3. (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.
  4. A meeting.
    OK, let's arrange a meet with Tyler and ask him.
  5. (algebra) The greatest lower bound, an operation between pairs of elements in a lattice, denoted by the symbol ∧.
  6. (Ireland) An act of French kissing someone.
Antonyms
  • (meeting of two trains): pass
  • (greatest lower bound): join
Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Middle English mete, imete, from Old English ġemǣte ‎(“suitable, having the same measurements”), from the Proto-Germanic *gamētijaz (cognate with Dutch meten ‎(“measure”), German gemäß ‎(“suitable”) etc.), itself from collective prefix ge- + Proto-Indo-European *med- ‎(“to measure”).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: mēt, IPA(key): /miːt/
  • Rhymes: -iːt
  • Homophones: meat, mete

Adjective

meet ‎(comparative meeter, superlative meetest)

  1. Suitable; right; proper.
  • For usage examples of this term, see Citations:meet.
Translations

References

  • “meet” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001).

Statistics

Most common English words before 1923: book · story · deep · #471: meet · interest · brother · I've

Anagrams

Dutch

Pronunciation

  • Rhymes: -eːt
  • IPA(key): /meːt/

Etymology 1

From Latin mēta.

Noun

meet f ‎(plural meten, diminutive meetje n)

  1. The finish line in a competition

Etymology 2

Verb

meet

  1. first-, second- and third-person singular present indicative of meten
  2. imperative of meten

Anagrams

Latin

Verb

meet

  1. third-person singular present active subjunctive of meō

Etymology

From Middle English meten, from Old English mētan ‎(“to meet, find, find out, fall in with, encounter, obtain”), from Proto-Germanic *mōtijaną ‎(“to meet”), from Proto-Indo-European *mōd-, *mad- ‎(“to come, meet”). Cognate with Scots met, mete, meit ‎(“to meet”), North Frisian mete ‎(“to meet”), West Frisian moetsje ‎(“to meet”), Dutch ontmoeten ‎(“to meet”), Low German, möten ‎(“to meet”), Danish møde ‎(“to meet”), Swedish möta ‎(“to meet”), Icelandic mæta ‎(“to meet”). Related to moot.

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