Meet means to meet in some manner. You could meet someone in a party, you could meet someone in a park, you could meet someone in a restaurant. There are so many ways to meet people. So you can meet the many requirements of other people, who mean to give you what they desire.
Let’s say you’re in a restaurant with three other people. Each one wants a piece of your food, none of them want to say a word but all want to eat. So you go up to each person, ask them where they want to eat and you add 3 meet, means you met them, you added 3 meetings to your group.
In the same way, if we have met a number of people in our groups, let’s say a hundred. We would like to get acquainted with them, but there’s nothing to talk about. It’s a dead meeting. We would need to get acquainted, to know more about this hundred person, to be able to meet them again and have a discussion.
So the question arises, “What is the root meaning of meet?” The root meaning of meet is to unite or join. When we say meet, it means getting together. When we say etymology, we mean genealogical history. So, when we say meet, we know where we meet, and we get along with our associates.
The root etymology of meet means to unite, and hence, to join. So when we say meet, we mean to put together. But there’s more to join than to put together. To join means to bind themselves, to belong. So when we say, we are bound by friendship, we mean we belong to a group or organization. The same thing holds true for any other word that has the prefix meet.
When you hear people talking about meeting somebody or getting together physically, it’s usually a reference to physical contact. Meeting means getting together. Physical contact can involve kissing, hugging, or even more intimate physical contact such as touching hands. So when we hear someone talking about meeting up or getting together, what they are really saying is, I am going to touch you in a friendly way so we can become friends. Or perhaps I will rub your back and give you a kiss.
Another example is, I am going to meet with my friend today in order to be present at the arrival of her boyfriend. I will meet him before he gets on the plane. I will be with her the entire time she is with him. These are all examples of verbs that suggest I am going to do something when I am ready to meet or be present at the arrival of a certain person.
The most common word used to indicate when to meet is met. I have listed several times that indicate you are going to need to meet when you meet somebody. Remember to use the correct verbs in order to explain your intentions. When you know what to say, it’s just a matter of saying it.
There are also times when you meet somebody but you aren’t sure if you want to meet them or not. The words for when to come into the presence of someone might seem obvious but there are situations where people meet for the wrong reasons. If you’re unsure whether you want to meet someone or not, then you just need to use another word to describe the situation such as “uneasy” or “disinterested”.
On the other hand, there are several etymology documents that give us the origin of several English words that mean “to meet”. Take for instance, metonymy. This etymology document traces the word from the Middle English language, meaning, “to meet closely”. However, from its origin, it has taken on various forms in various languages, alluding to our modern sense of “to meet closely”.
Other examples of etymology documents are found in French and German, both of which have words that directly translate to English as “to meet”. So, as you can see, metonymy and metenonymic derive from the same root. But where does the relationship between meet and metonymy end? The etymology documents do say that they are related but how far are they connected? Are they one in the same or different?
This article aims to explore this question by starting with the English language. From the etymology documents and from basic meanings around the globe, we can see that the meeting is a verb that denotes a very specific action. Then, using examples from around the world, we can conclude that metonymy is a verb that describes meeting a person, while metenonymic is a verb that describes a non-identical thing.