accost
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
- First attested in the 1570's.
- From Old French accoster, from Vulgar Latin accosto (“to come alongside someone”), from ad (“near”) + costa (“rib, side”)
Pronunciation [edit]
Verb [edit]
accost (third-person singular simple present accosts, present participle accosting, simple past and past participle accosted)
- (transitive) To approach and speak to boldly or aggressively, as with a demand or request.
- 2012 August 21, Pilkington, Ed, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, The Guardian:
- The Missouri prosecutors' case against Clemons, based partly on incriminating testimony given by his co-defendants, was that Clemons was part of a group of four youths who accosted the sisters on the Chain of Rocks Bridge one dark night in April 1991.
- 2012 August 21, Pilkington, Ed, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, The Guardian:
- (transitive, obsolete) To join side to side; to border; hence, to sail along the coast or side of.
- So much [of Lapland] as accosts the sea. - Fuller
- (transitive, obsolete) To approach; to come up to.
- (transitive) To speak to first; to address; to greet.
- Him, Satan thus accosts - Milton
- 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XVIII
- She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request—"She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink."
- (intransitive, obsolete) To adjoin; to lie alongside.
- The shores which to the sea accost - Spenser
- To solicit sexually.
Derived terms [edit]
Translations [edit]
to approach and speak to boldly or aggressively, as with a demand or request
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to join side to side; to border; hence, to sail along the coast or side of
to speak to first, to address, to greet
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked
Noun [edit]
accost (plural accosts)
- (rare) Address; greeting.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of J. Morley to this entry?)
