meet

present singular third person meets · participle present meeting · participle past met · past met

1. To make contact (with someone) while in proximity.
   1. To come face to face with by accident; to encounter.

      Fancy meeting you here! Guess who I met at the supermarket today?

      1 more example

      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[…]

      1899, Hughes Mearns, Antigonish

   2. To come face to face with someone by arrangement.

      Let's meet at the station at 9 o'clock.

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      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.

      1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 10, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

   3. To get acquainted with someone.

      José, I don't think you've met my friend Maria.

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      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!

      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.

      1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

2. To come together.
   1. 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.

      1 more example

      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.

      1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC

   2. To come together in conflict.

      Weapons more violent, when next we meet, May serve to better us and worse our foes.

      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

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      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

      1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter LV, in Le Morte Darthur, book X

      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.

      2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 18

   3. hobbiesTo play a match.

      England and Holland will meet in the final.

3. 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.

      1 more example

      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

      1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   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. transitiveTo counter equally; to match.

      Galactus meets your challenge, hears your call. This world, we'll bring destruction to it all!

      2023 December 18, “Galactus VS Unicron (Marvel Comics VS Transformers)” (16:29 from the start), in DEATH BATTLE!, season 10, episode 16, spoken by Galactus (Wolf Williams)

   5. transitiveTo respond to (an argument etc.) with something equally convincing; to refute.

      He met every objection to the trip with another reason I should go.

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      Carrados knew quite enough of flint implements—as indeed he seemed to know enough of any subject beneath the sun—to be able to talk on level terms with an expert, and he was quite equal to meeting a reference to Evans or to Nadaillac with another.

      1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries

4. To satisfy; to comply with.

   This proposal meets my requirements. The company agrees to meet the cost of any repairs.

   1 more example

   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.

   2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70

5. intransitiveTo 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.

6. 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.

   2 more examples

   Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst, Which meets contempt, or which compassion first.

   1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC

   […] And all we met was fair and good, ⁠And all was good that Time could bring, […]

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXIII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 40

7. To be mixed with, to be combined with aspects of.

   ‘I’m planning a sort of fabliau comparing this place with a fascist state,’ said Sampson, ‘sort of Animal Farm meets Arturo Ui . . .’

   1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section I, page 19

plural meets

1. hobbiesA sports competition, especially for track and field or swimming.

   swim meet

   2 more examples

   track meet

   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.

   2009, Alexandria Mangas, Janet Hommel Mangas, Oxygen for the Swimmer, Xulon Press, →ISBN, page 91

2. hobbiesA gathering of riders, horses and hounds for foxhunting; a field meet for hunting.
3. rail transportA meeting of two trains in opposite directions on a single track, when one is put into a siding to let the other cross.

   Antonyms: pass

4. informalA meeting.

   OK, let's arrange a meet with Tyler and ask him.

   3 more examples

   You feel me? You use these phones to set up a meet, go to that meet… and talk face to face, period.

   2002, George Pelecanos, “Cleaning Up”, in The Wire, season 1, episode 12 (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.

   2004, Matthew Weiner, “Rat Pack”, in The Sopranos, season 5, episode 2 (television production)

   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.

   2012 February 23, Joe Kloc, “The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks”, in Wired, →ISSN

5. algebraThe greatest lower bound, an operation between pairs of elements in a lattice, denoted by the symbol ∧.

   Antonyms: join

comparative meeter · superlative meetest · alternative obsolete mete

1. archaicSuitable; right; proper.

   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, Genesis 2:18

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   It ſeemes not meete, nor wholeſome to my place, / To be producted, (as, if I ſtay, I ſhall,) / Againſt the Moore. […]

   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

   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?

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 8:26

   […] 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.

   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

   The mountain birds are sweeter, But the valley birds are fatter, And so we deemed it meeter To carry off the latter.

   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)

2. obsoleteSubmissive; passive.