Link Centre Dictionary

encounter

en·coun·ter

UK/ɪnˈkaʊntə/ US/ɪŋˈkaʊntə/ fairly common
verb (5) noun (4)

verb

1.
2.

come upon, as if by accident; meet with

  • “We find this idea in Plato”
  • “I happened upon the most wonderful bakery not very far from here”
  • “She chanced upon an interesting book in the bookstore the other day”
Synonyms
3.

be beset by

  • “The project ran into numerous financial difficulties”
Synonyms
4.

experience as a reaction

  • “My proposal met with much opposition”
Synonyms
5.

contend against an opponent in a sport, game, or battle

  • “Princeton plays Yale this weekend”
  • “Charlie likes to play Mary”
Synonyms

noun

1.
2.

a casual or unexpected convergence

  • “he still remembers their meeting in Paris”
  • “there was a brief encounter in the hallway”
Synonyms
3.

a casual meeting with a person of thing

Synonyms
4.

Origin

From Middle English encountren, from Anglo-Norman encountrer, Old French encontrer (“to confront”), from encontre (“against, counter to”), from Late Latin incontrā (“in front of”) itself from Latin in (“in”) + contrā (“against”).

Phrases

  • close encounter
  • encounter group
  • marriage encounter
  • random encounter

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

Related verbs

Entails

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.