different between apropos vs meet

English

Alternative forms

• à propos
• àpropos

Etymology

Borrowed from French à propos (“on that subject”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?æp.???p??/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?æp.???po?/
• Rhymes: -??

Adjective

apropos (comparative more apropos, superlative most apropos)

1. Of an appropriate or pertinent nature.
   • 1877, Jules Verne, translated by Frederick Amadeus Malleson, Journey into the Interior of the Earth, Chapter VI,

     Nothing easier. I received not long ago a map from my friend, Augustus Petermann, at Leipzig. Nothing could be more apropos.
2. by the way, incidental
   • 1877, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

     Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. "No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he observed. "Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine."

Synonyms

• (by the way): by the way, incidentally, incidental

Translations

Preposition

apropos

1. Regarding or concerning.
   • 2011, Jeremy Harding, "Diary", London Review of Books, 33.VII:

     Few have the same root and branch obsession with the recent past or the avenger’s recall (‘the necessity for long memory and sarcasm in argument’, as he wrote apropos the old left intelligentsia in New York).

Synonyms

• about, as for; See also Thesaurus:about

Antonyms

• malapropos

Derived terms

• apropos of
• apropos of nothing

Translations

Adverb

apropos

1. By the way.
2. Timely; at a good time.
3. To the purpose; appropriately.

Translations

Anagrams

• Sapporo

Danish

Alternative forms

• (nonstandard) à propos

Etymology

Borrowed from French à propos.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /apropo/, [ap???op?o], [?p???op?o]

Noun

apropos n (singular definite aproposet or apropos'et, plural indefinite aproposer or apropos'er)

1. aside

Inflection

Preposition

apropos

1. apropos (regarding or concerning)

Adverb

apropos

1. apropos

German

Etymology

Borrowed from French à propos.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ap?o?po?]

Adverb

apropos

1. apropos

Synonyms

• nebenbei
• übrigens

Further reading

• “apropos” in Duden online

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: m?t, IPA^(key): /mi?t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /mit/
• Rhymes: -i?t
• Homophones: meat, mete

Etymology 1

From Middle English meten, from Old English m?tan (“to meet, find, find out, fall in with, encounter, obtain”), from Proto-West Germanic *m?tijan (“to meet”), from Proto-Germanic *m?tijan? (“to meet”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh?d- (“to come, meet”).

Verb

meet (third-person singular simple present meets, present participle meeting, simple past and past participle met)

1. To make contact (with) while in proximity.
   2. To come face to face with by accident; to encounter.
   3. To come face to face with someone by arrangement.
   4. To get acquainted with someone.

      • Captain Edward Carlisle […] felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, […]; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meet so superb a woman as this under handicap so hard.

2. (Of groups) To come together.
   1. To gather for a formal or social discussion; to hold a meeting.

      • At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors. […] In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

   2. To come together in conflict.
   3. (sports) To play a match.

3. To make physical or perceptual contact.
   1. To converge and finally touch or intersect.

      • 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.

   3. To adjoin, be physically touching.

   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.
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.
7. To be mixed with, to be combined with aspects of.
   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 28:

     ‘I'm planning a sort of fabliau comparing this place with a fascist state,’ said Sampson, ‘sort of Animal Farm meets Arturo Ui...’

Usage notes

In the sense "come face to face with someone by arrangement", meet is sometimes used with the preposition with. Nonetheless, some state that as a transitive verb in the context "to come together by chance or arrangement", meet (as in meet (someone)) does not require a preposition between verb and object; the phrase meet with (someone) is deemed incorrect. See also meet with.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

meet (plural meets)

1. (sports) A sports competition, especially for track and field or swimming.
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.

   Antonym: pass

4. (informal) A meeting.
5. (algebra) The greatest lower bound, an operation between pairs of elements in a lattice, denoted by the symbol ?.

   Antonym: join

Derived terms

Etymology 2

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

Alternative forms

• mete (obsolete)

Adjective

meet (comparative meeter, superlative meetest)

1. (archaic) Suitable; right; proper.

Derived terms

• meetly
• meetness
• unmeet
• helpmeet

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “meet”, in Online Etymology Dictionary
• meet at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Teme, etem, mete, teem, teme

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /me?t/
• Hyphenation: meet
• Rhymes: -e?t

Etymology 1

From Latin m?ta.

Noun

meet f (plural meten, diminutive meetje n)

1. The finish line in a competition

Etymology 2

Verb

meet

1. first-, second- and third-person singular present indicative of meten
2. imperative of meten

Anagrams

• mete

Latin

Verb

meet

1. third-person singular present active subjunctive of me?

Middle English

Noun

meet

1. Alternative form of mete (“food”)