rencounter
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle French rencontrer (verb), Middle French rencontre (noun), corresponding to re- + Old French encontrer (“encounter”).
Pronunciation edit
Verb edit
rencounter (third-person singular simple present rencounters, present participle rencountering, simple past and past participle rencountered)
- (archaic, transitive) To meet, encounter, come into contact with.
- (obsolete) To attack hand to hand.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- Tho, whenas still he saw him towards pace,
He gan rencounter him in equall race
Noun edit
rencounter (plural rencounters)
- (archaic) An encounter between opposing forces; a conflict.
- 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:
- Mr Nightingale promised to enquire into the state of Mr Fitzpatrick's wound, and likewise to find out some of the persons who were present at the rencounter.
- 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, pages 251–252:
- He had some advantage in the difference of our weapons; for his sword, as I recollect, was longer than mine, […] His obvious malignity of purpose never for a moment threw him off his guard, and he exhausted every feint and strategem proper to the science of defence; while, at the same time, he mediated the most desperate catastrophe to our rencounter.
- (archaic) An encounter or chance meeting.
- 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:
- The Prior at length […] rode off with considerably less pomp, and in a much more apostolical condition, so far as worldly matters were concerned, than he had exhibited before this rencounter.