rencounter

present singular third person rencounters · participle present rencountering · participle past rencountered · past rencountered · alternative obsolete rencontre

1. archaictransitiveTo meet, encounter, come into contact with.
2. obsoleteTo attack hand to hand.

   Tho, whenas still he saw him towards pace, He gan rencounter him in equall race

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

plural rencounters · alternative archaic rencontre

1. archaicAn encounter between opposing forces; a conflict.

   Mr Nightingale promised to enquire into the state of Mr Fitzpatrick's wound, and likewise to find out some of the persons who were present at the rencounter.

   1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   He had some advantage in the difference of our weapons; for his sword, as I recollect, was longer than mine, […] His obvious malignity of purpose never for a moment threw him off his guard, and he exhausted every feint and strategem proper to the science of defence; while, at the same time, he mediated the most desperate catastrophe to our rencounter.

   1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, pages 251–252

2. archaicAn encounter or chance meeting.

   The Prior at length […] rode off with considerably less pomp, and in a much more apostolical condition, so far as worldly matters were concerned, than he had exhibited before this rencounter.

   1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC