English
meet
Meet comes from Old English mētan ‘to meet, find, encounter’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d-.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*meh₂d-1‘to come’reconstructed
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*mōtijaną1‘to meet’reconstructed
- Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*mōtijan1‘to meet’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150mētan1‘to meet’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500meten1
- Englishearliest quotation 1485meet1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English meet
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1485, Sir Thomas Malory: “Sir said Epynegrys is þᵗ the rule of yow…”.
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*meh₂d-Wiktionary, English meet‘to come’reconstructed
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*mōtijanąWiktionary, English meet‘to meet’reconstructed
- Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*mōtijanWiktionary, English meet‘to meet’reconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150mētanWiktionary, English meet‘to meet’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500metenWiktionary, English meet
- Englishearliest quotation 1485meetWiktionary, English meet. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1485, Sir Thomas Malory: “Sir said Epynegrys is þᵗ the rule of yow…”
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with meet, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- ‘to come, meet’
through Proto-Germanic *mōtijaną ‘to meet’
- moot ← moten ← mōtian
13 more relatives in the full family tree
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Today it means
verb To come face to face with by accident; to encounter.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “meet”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- / meet