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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

English

meet

/miːt/
To come face to face with by accident; to encounter.

    Etymology graph

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    • derived
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    • meaning component
    • sound component
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    Origin

    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 meet, mätje, möt (“to meet”), West Frisian mette, moetsje (“to meet”), Dutch ontmoeten (“to meet”), Low German möten (“to meet”), Danish møde (“to meet”), Elfdalian my̨öt (“to meet”), Faroese møta (“to meet”), Icelandic mæta (“to meet”), Norwegian Bokmål møte (“to meet”), Norwegian Nynorsk møta, møte (“to meet”), Swedish möta (“to meet”). Related to moot.

    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”).

    From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Lineage

    • rootProto-Indo-European*meh₂d- (meet)
    • inheritedMiddle Englishmeten “to dream”
      • inheritedOld Englishmētan “to meet, find, encounter”
        • inheritedProto-West Germanic*mōtijan “to meet”
          • inheritedProto-Germanic*mōtijaną “to meet”
            • derivedProto-Indo-European*meh₂d- “to be wet; grease, fat”
        • inheritedProto-West Germanic*metan “to measure”
          • inheritedProto-Germanic*metaną “to measure”
    • inheritedMiddle Englishmete “food”
      • inheritedOld Englishġemǣte “suitable, having the same measurements”
        • inheritedProto-Germanic*gamētijaz

    Related: Scots met, North Frisian meet, West Frisian mette, Dutch ontmoeten, Low German möten, Danish møde, Elfdalian my̨öt, Faroese møta, Icelandic mæta, Norwegian Bokmål møte, Norwegian Nynorsk møta, Swedish möta, Dutch meten, German gemäß

    Meanings

    verb
    1. To come face to face with by accident; to encounter.
    2. To come face to face with someone by arrangement.
    3. To get acquainted with someone.
    4. To gather for a formal or social discussion; to hold a meeting.
    5. To come together in conflict.
    6. To play a match.
    noun
    1. A sports competition, especially for track and field or swimming.
    2. A gathering of riders, horses and hounds for foxhunting; a field meet for hunting.
    3. 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. A meeting.
    5. The greatest lower bound, an operation between pairs of elements in a lattice, denoted by the symbol ∧.
    adj
    1. Suitable; right; proper.
    2. Submissive; passive.

    Sources

    • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
    • Wiktionary: meet