meet with

English

Verb

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

1. (chiefly US, Canada) To have a meeting with (someone).
   • 1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 239:

     ‘They want to meet with you at the Annexe as soon as possible. I'm to ring back by yesterday.’
     ‘They want what?’
     ‘To meet you. But they use the preposition.’
     ‘Do they? Do they really? Good Lord. I suppose it's the German influence. Or is it old English? Meet with. Well I must say.’ And he lumbered off to the bathroom to shave.

2. To encounter; to experience.

   The proposal met with stiff opposition.

   • 1758 [1752], “LXXII. Concerning Snakes.”, in The Natural History of Iceland […] , London, translation of Tilforladelige efterretninger om Island by Niels Horrebow, page 91:

     No ſnakes of any kind are to be met with throughout the whole iſland.

   • 1900 May 17, L[yman] Frank Baum, chapter 23, in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Ill., New York, N.Y.: Geo[rge] M[elvin] Hill Co., →OCLC:

     Dorothy told the Witch all her story: how the cyclone had brought her to the Land of Oz, how she had found her companions, and of the wonderful adventures they had met with.

3. To answer (something) with; to respond to (something) with.

   They met the proposal with stiff opposition.

   The proposal was met with stiff opposition.

   The proposal met with stiff opposition. (ergative)

4. To strike (something).

   His face met with a punch harder than a punch should be.

5. To contact or touch (something).

   The baseboard met with the chimney stones very crudely.

Usage notes

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. Nonetheless, in the sense "come face to face with someone by arrangement", meet with is generally accepted as an American English usage. See also meet.