Meeting

How to spell meeting

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce meeting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does meeting mean?

1. nounAn occasion when people come together to discuss something or make decisions.
2. verbPresent participle of meet: in the act of coming into the presence of someone.

Meeting in a sentence

• noun

  The budget meeting ran an hour longer than scheduled.

• verb

  He was nervous about meeting his future in-laws for the first time.

• noun

  She added the client meeting to her calendar for Thursday.

• verb

  They spent the afternoon meeting old friends at the reunion.

Where does meeting come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows straight out of the native English verb 'meet', which in Old English was 'mētan', meaning 'to come upon' or 'to find one another'. That verb in turn traces back to the noun 'mōt' or 'gemōt', an assembly or gathering of people, a word preserved today in the term 'moot' (as in a moot point or a moot court, originally a debate held at such a gathering). By adding the productive ending '-ing', which forms nouns of action, Old English speakers produced 'mēting' for the act or occasion of coming together. The double 'e' is simply the long vowel of 'meet' written out, so the spelling is regular and rarely causes trouble. Because it is a thoroughly Germanic word with no Latin or French detour, its modern shape has stayed close to its ancient one.

How the word is built

• meet (to come together, from Old English mētan)
• -ing (suffix forming a noun of action or a gerund)