accost

Etymology

First attested in the 1570s. From Old French accoster, from Vulgar Latin accosto (“to come alongside someone”), from ad (“near”) + costa (“rib, side”). Cognate with Spanish acostar (“to lie down, go to bed”).

verb

1. (transitive) To approach and speak to boldly or aggressively, as with a demand or request.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To join side to side; to border.
3. (by extension, transitive, obsolete) To sail along the coast or side of.
4. (transitive, obsolete) To approach; to come up to.
   You mistake, knight. ‘Accost’ is front / her, board her, woo her, assail her. c. 1601–1602, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act 1, scene 3, lines 53–54
5. (transitive) To speak to first; to address; to greet.
   Him, Satan thus accosts. 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost, line 653
   She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request—"She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink." 1847, Charlotte Bronte, chapter XVIII, in Jane Eyre
6. (intransitive, obsolete) To adjoin; to lie alongside.
   For all the Shores, which to the Sea accost 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V”, in The Faerie Queene, canto 2, stanza XLII
   Lapland hath since been often surrounded (so much as accosts the sea) by the English. 1662, Thomas Fuller, “Derby-shire”, in History of the Worthies of England
7. (transitive) To assault.
   Surveillance video of the incident shows the man and woman being accosted by a man armed with and assault-style handgun. 2017-06-21, Glenn E. Rice, “Police seek two gunmen who accosted Kansas City couple”, in The Kansas City Star
   The Missouri prosecutors' case against Clemons, based partly on incriminating testimony given by his co-defendants, was that Clemons was part of a group of four youths who accosted the sisters on the Chain of Rocks Bridge one dark night in April 1991. 21 August 2012, Ed Pilkington, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, in The Guardian
8. (transitive) To solicit sexually.
   Gladstone's initial tone of disinterested philanthropy also characterized his first encounters with prostitutes in London once he has moved there to undertake his parliamentary duties. Accosted in a London park in 1837 by two women, Gladstone merely reported of them that "both ... had taken to their miserable calling from losing their livelihood by the death of their husbands." 1997, Travis L. Crosby, The Two Mr. Gladstones

noun

1. (rare) Address; greeting.
   A man does not seize a woman by the sleeve and ask, "Is it you?" without some reason for an address so destitute of ordinary courtesy; and Lucilla was sufficiently versed in such matters to know that so rude and startling an accost could be only addressed to some one whose presence set the speaker's heart beating, and quickened the blood in his veins. 1866, Margaret Oliphant, chapter XXIII, in Miss Marjoribanks (Chronicles of Carlingford)
   Anne liked to accost foreigners in their own tongue , but , being ignorant of Spanish , asked M. de Grignaux to teach her a sentence of polite accost in his own language, wherewith to welcome an ambassador from Spain. 1871, Henry Morley, Clement Marot
   Great was my amazement to find the unconquerable Mr. Sim thaw immediately on the accost of this strange gentleman, who hailed him with a ready familiarity, proceeded at once to discuss with him the trade of droving and the prices of cattle, and did not disdain to take a pinch from the inevitable ram's horn. 1897, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Drovers”, in St. Ives
2. An attack.
   At last, when I was already within reach of her, I stopped. Words were denied me; if I advanced I could but clasp her to my heart in silence; and all that was sane in me, all that was still unconquered, revolted against the thought of such an accost. 1887, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Olalla”, in The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables