▪ I. encounter, n.
(ɛnˈkaʊntə(r))
Forms: 3 encontre, 5 encountre, 6– encounter. Also 6–8 incounter.
[a. OF. encontre masc. and fem. (cf. Pr. encontre, Sp. encuentro, It. incontro), f. late L. incontrāre: see next.]
A meeting face to face.
1. A meeting face to face; a meeting (of adversaries or opposing forces) in conflict; hence, a battle, skirmish, duel, etc.
| 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 8051 He vond hard encontre in norþhumberlande. c 1430 Syr Gener. (Roxb.) 5083 But than cam encountre strong Folk of higher Inde among. 1575 Chr. Prayers in Priv. Prayers (1851) 542 How unseemly an encounter is this, wherein the flesh being matched against the spirit..striveth with him for victory. 1586 T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. i. (1589) 104 An incounter of their armies, wherein Cæsar, being at that time the weaker, had the woorst. 1594 Shakes. Rich. III, i. ii. 115 To leaue this keene encounter of our wittes. 1667 Milton P.L. ii. 718 Winds the signal blow To joyn thir dark Encounter in mid air. 1672 Marvell Reh. Transp. i. 229, I..have no heart to this incounter. 1828 Scott F.M. Perth i, In these vales..the Saxons..and the Gael..had many a desperate and bloody encounter. 1853 Robertson Serm. Ser. iii. xvii. 221 We must shrink from the encounter with death. |
† b. attrib. Obs. rare.
| 1598 Stow Surv. xxxix. (1603) 386 [A champion in the lists says] Though my horse fayle me I will not fayle an incounter companion. |
2. The fact of meeting with (a person or thing), esp. undesignedly or casually. Const. of, with.
| 1656 Sir J. Finett For. Ambass. 22 In case he should be put to it upon any incounter of negotiation or otherwise. 1665 Evelyn Mem. (1857) III. 161 We are infinitely defective as to..excuses..upon sudden and unpremeditated encounters. a 1699 A. Halkett Autobiog. (1875) 9, I must here relate a little odd Incounter. 1794 Godwin Cal. Williams 230 The state of calamity to which my..persecutor had reduced me, had made the encounter even of a den of robbers, a fortunate adventure. a 1859 Macaulay Hist. Eng. V. 93 There was constant risk of an encounter which might have produced several duels. 1870 Emerson Soc. & Solit. Wks. (Bohn) III. 5 The encounter with superior persons on terms allowing the happiest intercourse. |
† b. An amatory interview. Obs. rare.
| 1599 Shakes. Much Ado iii. iii. 161 The Prince..saw a far off in the Orchard this amiable incounter. Ibid. iv. i. 94 Who hath indeed most like a liberall villaine, Confest the vile encounters they haue had A thousand times in secret. |
† c. An accosting, address. Obs. Cf. encounter v. 7.
| 1591 Shakes. Two Gent. ii. vii. 41 For I would preuent The loose encounters of lasciuious men. |
d. (A session of) encounter therapy; the experience of participating in an encounter group. Also spec., the name of an organization (also called the Human Potentials Movement) which originally promoted encounter groups. See encounter group, etc., sense 7 below.
| 1967 C. R. Rogers in J. F. Bugental Challenges Humanistic Psychol. 263/1 The interaction is best thought of..as a varied tapestry..with certain kinds of trends evidenced in most of these intensive encounters. 1968 J. Howard in Life 12 July 57/2 The movement is..known in some quarters as the ‘encounter’ and in others as the ‘T-group’. 1970 ― Please Touch 4 Encounters, one leader of the movement says, ‘teach intimacy, which gives life a whole new dimension’. Ibid. 16 After the Advanced Encounter I was persuaded easily to remain for the weekend. 1972 Times 5 June 13/3 Encounter, or the Human Potential Movement, or the Growth Movement, as its devotees call it, is rapidly catching on in this country from America. 1973 Nation Rev. (Melbourne) 31 Aug. 1462/1 The irrational core of the encounter movement..is that the complexity of human growth can be reduced to programmed emotional experience... The encounter experience, a feature of the middle class American search for utopia, has now become an entity in our own country. 1976 New Yorker 5 Jan. 30/1 It is true that encounter—which has been described as a way of achieving personal growth through the exploration of feelings among people gathered together for that purpose—owed a great deal of its vogue to the development it underwent at Esalen. 1986 G. Slovo Death by Analysis iii. 23 He started a series of bio-energetic groups with a bit of gestalt and encounter thrown in on the side. |
† 3. Manner of meeting another; style of address, behaviour. Obs.
| 1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. iv. v. 54 That with your strange encounter much amazed me. 1602 ― Ham. v. ii. 197 The tune of the time, and outward habite of encounter. 1611 ― Wint. T. iii. ii. 50 With what encounter so uncurrent I have strained to appear thus. |
† 4. An idea that suddenly presents itself, as it were by accident; a happy thought. Obs. rare.
| 1651 Hobbes Leviath. i. viii. 34 Many times with encounters of extraordinary Fancy. 1678 ― Nat. Philos. i. 11 Wonder..I never thought upon't before, for it is a very happy encounter. |
5. The fact of being met with; occurrence. rare.
| 1870 Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. i. (1873) 203 Things of daily encounter. |
† 6. Proposed as a name for the rhetorical figure antithesis. Obs. rare—1.
| 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xix. (Arb.) 219 Ye haue another figure very pleasant and fit for amplification, which to answer the Greeke terme, we may call the encounter. |
7. Special Comb. encounter group orig. U.S.: in group therapy, a group which meets in order to improve the emotional adjustments of its members through body contact, emotional expression, and confrontation; also encounter therapy.
| 1967 C. R. Rogers in J. F. Bugental Challenges Humanistic Psychol. 262/2 Since then I have been involved in more than forty ventures of what I would like to term—using the label most congenial to me—basic *encounter groups. 1968 J. Howard in Life 12 July 65/3 Will all that remains be a few yellowing Christmas cards from friends we met in encounter groups? 1978 G. A. Sheehan Running & Being viii. 105 Sport..reminds me of an encounter group I once attended. In the first exercise, the person next to me asked me again and again, ‘Who are you?’ 1985 Verbatim Spring 17/2 Many articles and books, radio and television programs, and self-help and encounter groups are designed to help us curb our tempers. |
| 1970 J. Howard Please Touch 24 A weekend of ‘Nude *Encounter Therapy’ run in some swimming pool near Los Angeles by a therapist. 1986 New Yorker 22 Sept. 68/2 People..practised growth-movement therapies: rolfing..and encounter therapies. |
▪ II. encounter, v.
(ɛnˈkaʊntə(r))
Also 4 encountre, 6–8 incounter.
[a. OFr. encontre-r, a Com. Romanic word, = Pr., Sp., Pg. encontrar, It. incontrare:—late L. incontrāre, f. in in + contra against.]
1. trans. To meet as an adversary; to confront in battle, assail. Sometimes absol. with reciprocal sense. Also fig.
| c 1300 St. Brandan 411 And encountrede this lithere fisch and smot to him faste. 1475 Caxton Jason 6 They that encountrid hercules. c 1500 Lancelot 3261 And ywons king..Encounterit hyme in myddis of the gren. 1577 T. Vautrollier Luther on Ep. Gal. 146 But let us suffer the law and the promise to encounter together. 1601 Holland Pliny II. 544 Astonied at the sight of a monstrous bull let loose and ready to incounter him. 1624 Capt. Smith Virginia i. 2 He was provided with a Navy able to incounter a Kings power. 1626 Mead in Ellis Orig. Lett. i. 336 III. 250 The Duke was hotly encountered by the Sailors about this day sennight. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. iv. 125 They challenge, and encounter Breast to Breast. 1781 Gibbon Decl. & F. II. xxxviii. 394 The two kings encountered each other in single combat. 1792 Burke Pres. St. Affairs Wks. VII. 90 Enemies very different from those she has hitherto had to encounter. 1851 E. Creasy Decis. Battles (1864) 187 To encounter Varus's army in a pitched battle. |
† b. intr. Const. against, usually with. Obs.
| 1530 Wolsey in Cavendish Life (1825) I. 324 Against whom the King was constrained to encounter in his royal person. 1555 Eden Decades W. Ind. ii. i. (Arb.) 107 Encounteryng with them, he was repulsed with shame and damage. 1684 Contempl. State of Man i. (1699) 109 That dreadful day wherein the Army of Vengeance..are to encounter with the Army of Sin. 1728 R. Morris Ess. Anc. Archit. 18 The single Enemies I have to encounter with. |
† 2. trans. To go counter to, oppose, thwart; to contest, dispute. Also absol. Obs.
| 1549 Coverdale Erasm. Par. Rom. 17 But some one will againe encounter and saye. 1583 Golding Calvin on Deut. vi. 32 When they withstand God and incounter his Word. 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xxiii. (Arb.) 276 Nothing is so vnpleasant to a man, as to be encountred in his chiefe affection. 1638 Penit. Conf. vi. (1657) 99 Saint Augustine incountring that opinion..reasoneth thus. 1677 Hale Prim. Orig. Man. 79 From the intrinsecal nature of the things that encounter the possibility of an eternal successive duration in them. 1786 Burke Art. agst. W. Hastings Wks. XII. 144 The evidence of this man, not having been encountered at the time. |
† b. intr. Const. with. Obs.
| 1677–8 Marvell Corr. No. 340 Wks. 1872–5 II. 604 Lest I should happen to incounter with our proceedings. |
† 3. trans. To be placed opposite, or in opposite directions, to (each other). Obs.
| 1610 J. Guillim Heraldry vi. v. (1660) 405 She beareth..three Swords barwayes proper, the middlemost encountring the other two. |
† b. intr. Const. with. Obs.
| 1659 J. Leak Water-wks. 34 There are Pins AE, incountring with Pins which are in PH. |
4. To meet, fall in with (a person or thing), esp. casually. Sometimes absol. Also fig.
| 1520 Caxton's Chron. Eng. iii. 26/1 Pompei and he encountred togyder. 1528 Foxe Let. to Gardiner 12 May in N. Pocock Rec. Reform. (1870) I. 141 Encountering Mr. Silvester Darius in the same place, who then was sent from the king's highness..into Spayne. 1614 Raleigh Hist. World ii. 395 Two men should incounter him by Rahel's Sepulchre. 1662 Evelyn Chalcogr. (1769) 56 Some rare things in stampi to be encountred amongst the collections of the curious. 1776 Johnson in Boswell (1816) III. §49 The most extraordinary young man that has encountered my knowledge. 1822 Byron Werner i. i. 322 We never met before, and never..may again encounter. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. §8. 57, I encountered a considerable stream rushing across it [the glacier]. 1875 Hamerton Intell. Life iii. iii. 91 He knew the dictionary meaning of every word he encountered. |
† b. intr. Const. with. Obs.
| 1632 Lithgow Trav. v. 190 A Christian Amaronite, who accidently encountred with vs. 1672 Marvell Reh. Transp. i. 142 It would be difficult to quote twenty lines in Mr. Bayes but we should encounter with the Roman Empire. 1767 Babler I. 67 xv. Some how or other my eye encountered with Miss Maria's at the end of this speech. |
5. To meet with, experience (difficulties, opposition, etc.). Also with notion of 1: To face resolutely.
| 1814 D'Israeli Quarrels Auth. (1867) 336 The Royal Society..encountered fierce hostilities. 1844 H. H. Wilson Brit. India III. 68 Disease was not, however, the only enemy which the British had to encounter. 1876 Green Short Hist. iii. §5 (1882) 141 From the Church he [Henry III] encountered as resolute an opposition. |
† b. intr. Const. with. Obs.
| 1581 Apol. Pr. Orange in Phenix (1721) I. 450 If..I had not incounter'd with the Hatred of the Spanish Nation. 1776 G. Semple Building in Water 14 They had not any Difficulties of Water to encounter with. |
† 6. To go to meet. Also fig. Obs.
| 1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. iii. i. 84, I will encounter darknesse as a bride And hugge it in mine armes. 1611 ― Cymb. i. iii. 32 At the sixt houre of Morne, at Noone, at Midnight, T' encounter me with Orisons. |
¶ Bombastically used for: To go to, approach (nonce-use).
| 1610 Shakes. Twel. N. iii. i. 82 Will you incounter the house. |
† 7. To accost, address. Obs.
| 1579 Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 36 With..smiling face..encountered him on this manner. 1590 Greene Never too late (1600) 25 Isabel..incountred him thus. Gentle sir, etc. |
▪ III. † enˈcounter, adv. Obs. rare—1.
[ad. OF. encontre against.]
Opposite, contrary; = counter adv.
| 1660 Hist. Indep. 82 The rogue of all the Kingdom ran directly encounter to their designs. |