- present participle of meet.
meeting
Americannoun
-
meetings
plural
-
the act of coming together.
a chance meeting in the park.
- Synonyms:
- rendezvous, confrontation, encounter
-
an assembly or conference of persons for a specific purpose.
a ten o'clock business meeting.
-
the body of persons present at an assembly or conference.
to read a report to the meeting.
-
a hostile encounter; duel.
-
an assembly for religious worship, especially of Quakers.
-
a place or point of contact; junction; juncture: the meeting of the waters.
the meeting of two roads;
the meeting of the waters.
idioms
noun
-
an act of coming together; encounter
-
an assembly or gathering
-
a conjunction or union
-
a sporting competition, as of athletes, or of horse racing
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of meeting
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English; meet 1 + -ing 1
Explanation
A meeting is the planned gathering of a group of people for a specific reason. You might attend a meeting for Trekkies who are all fans of "Star Trek," or you may decide to stay home and watch "Star Trek" reruns instead. Wise move. Meetings are arranged beforehand, and when you show up at one, there will be other people there for the same purpose. Your meeting might be your monthly book group or a quick huddle after work to plan your boss's surprise birthday party. Meeting can also mean "an encounter," like the chance meeting you have with your kindergarten teacher at the grocery store, or "the place things come together," like the meeting of two streams in your yard.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She loaded boxes of evidence into a White House meeting with Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to prove to the president that it was Burgum who had caused this problem for the president.
From Slate ● Aug. 8, 2026
The central bank voted 8-1 to keep rates unchanged at the meeting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Meetings would be scheduled but he would not show up, or he would request a meeting in a private space such as a car or apartment, which our reporter judged too much of a risk.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
The weaker-than-expected July jobs report lowers — but does not eliminate — the chances of an interest-rate hike at the Federal Reserve’s next meeting in September.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 7, 2026
She called hello to Emma a little while ago, but this is our first official meeting.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
It requires international travel to attend confederation meetings, and the global tournaments Fifa organises.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
Furious residents packing city-council meetings have become a familiar scene as proposals for data centers spark backlash in towns across America.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Warren Pies, founder of 3Fourteen Research, said on X that the Fed has only hiked twice after a negative jobs report, out of 89 meetings immediately following a contraction in employment.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 7, 2026
Multiple meetings with us were never kept, and eventually he stopped replying.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
These days they only risked the signal for important meetings.
From "Rickshaw Girl" by Mitali Perkins
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
