encounter

1. 1.

   a minor short-term fight

   Synonymsbrushclashskirmish

   Broaderfight

   Narrowercontretemps
2. 2.

   a casual or unexpected convergence

   “he still remembers their meeting in Paris”

   “there was a brief encounter in the hallway”

   Synonymsmeeting

   Broaderconvergence

   Narrowerconjunction
3. 3.

   a casual meeting with a person or thing

   Synonymscoming upon

   Broaderjoining
4. 4.

   a hostile disagreement face-to-face

   Synonymsconfrontationshowdownface-off

   Broaderdisagreement

Other forms of encounter

plural

encounters·

past tense

encounterred·

present participle

encounterring·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about encounter

What does encounter mean?

encounter means "come together". That is the primary sense; the word has 9 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in encounter?

encounter has 3 syllables: en-coun-ter. The stress falls on "coun". In IPA it is /ɪnˈkaʊntɚ/.

What is another word for encounter?

Close synonyms include meet, run into, run across, come across, see. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is encounter a common word?

encounter is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with encounter?

1 word rhymes with encounter. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.