meet

Etymology 1

From Middle English meten, from Old English mētan (“to meet, find, encounter”), from Proto-West Germanic *mōtijan (“to meet”), from Proto-Germanic *mōtijaną (“to meet”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (“to come, meet”). Cognates: Cognate with Scots met, mete, meit (“to meet”), North Frisian mete (“to meet”), West Frisian moetsje (“to meet”), Dutch ontmoeten (“to meet”), Low German möten (“to meet”), Danish møde (“to meet”), Norwegian Bokmål møte (“to meet”), Swedish möta (“to meet”), Icelandic mæta (“to meet”). Related to moot.

verb

1. To make contact (with) 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?
      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.
      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
   3. To get acquainted with someone.
      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!
2. (Of groups) 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.
   2. To come together in conflict.
      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. 2013-06-07, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 18
   3. (sports) To 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.
      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.
   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. (transitive) To respond to (an argument etc.) with something equally convincing; to refute.
      He met every objection to the trip with another reason I should go.
4. To satisfy; to comply with.
   This proposal meets my requirements. The company agrees to meet the cost of any repairs.
   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. 2013-06-22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70
5. (intransitive) To 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.
7. To be mixed with, to be combined with aspects of.

noun

1. (sports) A sports competition, especially for track and field or swimming.
   track meet
   swim 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, page 91
2. (hunting) A gathering of riders, horses and hounds for foxhunting; a field meet for hunting.
3. (rail transport) A meeting of two trains in opposite directions on a single track, when one is put into a siding to let the other cross.
4. (informal) A meeting.
   OK, let's arrange a meet with Tyler and ask him.
   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. 2012-02-23, Joe Kloc, “The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks”, in Wired, →ISSN
5. (algebra) The greatest lower bound, an operation between pairs of elements in a lattice, denoted by the symbol ∧.

Etymology 2

From Middle English mete, imete, from Old English ġemǣte (“suitable, having the same measurements”), from the Proto-Germanic *gamētijaz, *mētiz (“reasonable; estimable”) (cognate with Dutch meten (“measure”), German gemäß (“suitable”) etc.), itself from collective prefix *ga- + Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure”).

adj

1. (archaic) Suitable; right; proper.
   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, book I (The Sword in the Stone)