greeting

What it means

1. countableuncountableA conventional phrase used to start a letter or conversation or otherwise to acknowledge a person's arrival or presence.

   Send my greetings to your family.

   2 more examples

   It's polite to begin a letter with a greeting, but this practice is less common in email.

   Thank you to everyone who sent me birthday greetings.

2. uncountableThe action of the verb to greet.

   I had occasion […] to make a somewhat long business trip to Chicago, and on my return […] I found Farrar awaiting me in the railway station. He smiled his wonted fraction by way of greeting, […], and finally leading me to his buggy, turned and drove out of town.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

In a sentence

It's polite to begin a letter with a greeting, but this practice is less common in email.

Where it comes from

By surface analysis, greet + -ing.