encounter
Verbencounters, encountering, encountered
Noun pluralencounters
Formsencounters, encountering, encountered
Pluralencounters
- 1To meet someone or come across something, especially without expecting to.
Travelers often encounter unexpected delays during the holiday season.
She encountered a rare bird while hiking through the forest.
Similarmeet, face, experience, find
Oppositeavoid
Note
The everyday sense works for people and things alike. Thomas Heywood's The Silver Age (1613) has Jove's son encountering whales, and a 2021 RAIL report has a derailed train encountering a set of points. It takes a direct object. Its idiomatic near-synonym, cross paths, needs "with" and is used mostly of people: you cross paths with a colleague, but you encounter a problem.
- 2A meeting between people, especially one that is unplanned or unexpected.
The chance encounter at the conference led to a lasting friendship.
Her brief encounter with the famous author lasted only a few minutes.
Note
The noun usually names the other party with "with", as in Robert W. Chambers's The Younger Set (1907): "Selwyn's first encounter with the Ruthvens." The unplanned element is a tendency, not a rule. Maija Kalin's 1995 study of conversation speaks of participants who "have planned the encounters". When chance matters, English often says so outright: a chance encounter.
- 3To meet someone or something face to face, especially in opposition or as an obstacle.
Protesters encountered a line of police outside the building.
Explorers may encounter hostile conditions deep inside the cave.
Note
The sense closest to the word's roots: Old French encontrer meant "to confront", from encontre, "against, counter to", from Latin in plus contra. That "against" is what separates it from the chance-meeting sense. Here the parties face each other, and some opposition or test is implied, as when protesters meet a police line or explorers meet hostile conditions.
- 4A hostile, often violent meeting between opponents; a confrontation, skirmish, or clash.
The border encounter left several soldiers wounded.
A violent encounter between rival gangs broke out downtown.
Similarclash, confrontation, skirmish, fight, engagement
- 5To meet in battle or conflict, as opposing forces or enemies do.
The opposing armies encountered fiercely before nightfall.
When rival clans encounter, the fighting can last for days.
Similarclash, fight, battle, skirmish, engage
Note
The battlefield use once took "with": Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine means "to incounter with that Baiazeth", and Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus has "I will encounter with Andronicus." That construction now sounds Elizabethan. Modern English keeps the bare intransitive for armies, as in "three armies encountered at Waterloo", but prefers the transitive verb or a noun phrase for single opponents.
- 6A sporting match contested between two opposing sides.
Saturday's encounter between the two clubs drew a record crowd.
The away encounter proved decisive in the title race.
Similarmatch, game, fixture, contest, clash
Note
A sports reporter's word for a game, chosen when the contest itself is the story. Phil McNulty's BBC Sport report of Chelsea 3–5 Arsenal (2011) called it "an enthralling encounter". It pairs naturally with evaluative adjectives and keeps a trace of the clash sense, suggesting two sides genuinely meeting in opposition rather than a routine fixture.
- 7Sexual activity between two people, especially unplanned, who have not previously established a sexual relationship.
Their brief encounter that weekend never turned into anything more.
The memoir describes a single anonymous encounter she later regretted.
Note
Usually written "sexual encounter". When the bare noun carries the meaning, context alone decides it, so "a brief encounter" can be innocent or not. The phrase makes no claim about consent, which is why reporting relies on it. In Graham Bowley's 2021 coverage of the Cosby case, the word is neutral ground: one party calls the encounter consensual, and the other disputes it.
- 8The phase of a space mission during which a spacecraft carries out its main data-gathering work.
The Pluto encounter lasted only hours but yielded decades' worth of data.
Mission controllers rehearsed every step of the flyby encounter.
Note
Spaceflight's name for the payoff of a mission. Typically this is a flyby or close approach, when the spacecraft does the observing it was built for. The word is usually prefixed with the target body's name, as in the Pluto encounter, and it marks a bounded window: everything before it is cruise, and everything after is analysis.
- 9A euphemism, used in India, for killing or executing someone outside the law, with no trial or other legal process.
Critics allege that officers sometimes encounter suspects rather than bringing them to court.
Human rights groups demanded an inquiry after three suspects were encountered within hours of their arrest.
Note
An Indian English euphemism, and a grim one. The verb borrows the innocence of the everyday meeting sense to name a killing without trial. It takes a person as its object and often appears in the passive. In 2021 the Telangana minister Reddy said an accused man "should be encountered". Readers unfamiliar with the usage can easily mistake it for a mere meeting, so context matters.
- 10A killing or execution carried out outside the law, without any judicial process.
The commission investigated several encounters reported by the district police.
The alleged encounter turned out to be a staged shooting.
Note
The noun behind the euphemistic verb, and the older-looking of the pair. An "encounter" here is a killing by police or security forces that is officially described as a death in an armed confrontation. The typical phrase is "killed in an encounter", as when a Telangana minister promised in 2021 that an accused man would be nabbed and killed in one.
Less common meaning
- 11To meet one another.
The delegates encountered at the summit and exchanged greetings.
Two storms can encounter over the ocean and merge into one.
Note
A rare reciprocal use with no object: the two parties simply "encounter". In Herman Melville's Pierre (1852), a brother and sister "had encountered, according to the set appointment", so the meeting need not be by chance. Modern writers almost always say "met" or "encountered each other" instead, which is the safer choice outside deliberately literary prose.
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Origin
This comes from Middle English encountren, via Anglo-Norman encountrer and Old French encontrer ('to confront'), from encontre ('against, counter to'). That traces back to Late Latin incontrā ('in front of'), formed from Latin in ('in') plus contrā ('against').