rencontre

plural rencontres · alternative archaic rencounter

1. archaicA chance or unexpected meeting or encounter.

   In the entrance hall I was somewhat surprised, and my fair companion still more so, when we met Rashleigh Osbaldistone, who could not help shewing equal wonder at our rencontre.

   1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter VIII, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 165

   3 more examples

   [T]his interview was marked with circumstances in some degree more formally complaisant than those which attended your meeting with him in our worthy publisher's; for yours had the appearance of a fortuitous rencontre, whereas mine was preceded by the communication of a large roll of papers, containing a new history, called Peveril of the Peak.

   1822, [Walter Scott], “Prefatory Letter, from the Reverend Doctor Driasdust of York, to Captain Clutterbuck, Residing at Fairy-Lodge, near Kennaquhair, N.B.”, in Peveril of the Peak. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, pages ii–iii

   Mr. Gadsden hesitated, jealous and scrupulous now in his actions where ladies were concerned, and more especially anxious on that day that the two circumstances, the rencontre of the morning and the visit of the evening, should not be coupled together by the Northington people.

   1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter IV, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 52

   Fancy our late monarch George III when he heard of the revolt of the North American colonies: fancy brazen Goliath when little David stepped forward and claimed a meeting; and you have the feelings of Mr. Reginald Cuff when this rencontre was proposed to him.

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter V, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

present singular third person rencontres · participle present rencontring · participle past rencontred · past rencontred

1. obsoleteObsolete form of rencounter.