What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Meet vs Fine - What's the difference?

meet | fine |

As verbs the difference between meet and fine

is that meet is (lb) of individuals: to make personal contact while fine is .

As a noun meet

is a sports competition, especially for athletics or swimming.

As an adjective meet

is suitable; right; proper.

meet

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) meten, from (etyl) . Related to (l).

Verb

  • (lb) Of individuals: to make personal contact.
  • #(senseid)To come face to face with by accident; to encounter.
  • #:
  • #*
  • , passage=Yesterday, upon the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there / He wasn’t there again today / I wish, I wish he’d go away
  • #To come face to face with someone by arrangement.
  • #:
  • #*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=10 citation , passage=With a little manœuvring they contrived to meet on the doorstep which was […] in a boiling stream of passers-by, hurrying business people speeding past in a flurry of fumes and dust in the bright haze.}}
  • #To be introduced to someone.
  • #:
  • #:
  • #*
  • #*:Captain Edward Carlisle; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meet so superb a woman as this under handicap so hard.
  • #(lb) To French kiss someone.
  • (lb) Of groups: to gather or oppose.
  • #To gather for a formal or social discussion.
  • #:
  • #*
  • #*:At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors.In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.
  • #To come together in conflict.
  • #*:
  • #*:Sir said Epynegrys is þt the rule of yow arraunt knyghtes for to make a knyght to Iuste will he or nyll / As for that sayd Dynadan make the redy / for here is for me / And there with al they spored theyr horses & mett to gyders soo hard that Epynegrys smote doune sir Dynadan
  • #*(John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • #*:Weapons more violent, when next we meet , / May serve to better us and worse our foes.
  • #*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Gary Younge)
  • , volume=188, issue=26, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution , passage=The dispatches
  • #(lb) To play a match.
  • #:
  • (lb) To make physical or perceptual contact.
  • #To converge and finally touch or intersect.
  • #:
  • #*
  • #*:Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner (might do).
  • #To touch or hit something while moving.
  • #:
  • #To adjoin, be physically touching.
  • #:
  • To satisfy; to comply with.
  • :
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.
  • To perceive; to come to a knowledge of; to have personal acquaintance with; to experience; to suffer.
  • :
  • *(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
  • *:Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst, / Which meets contempt, or which compassion first.
  • Usage notes
    In the sense "come face to face with someone by arrangement", meet'' is sometimes used with the preposition ''with in American English.
    Derived terms
    * make ends meet * meet-and-greet * meet-cute * meet halfway * meet one's doom * meet one's maker * meet up * meet with

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A sports competition, especially for athletics or swimming.
  • A gathering of riders, their horses and hounds for the purpose of foxhunting.
  • (rail transport) A meeting of two trains in opposite directions on a single track, when one is put into a siding to let the other cross. (Antonym: a pass.)
  • A meeting.
  • OK, let's arrange a meet with Tyler and ask him.
  • (algebra) the greatest lower bound, an operation between pairs of elements in a lattice, denoted by the symbol (mnemonic: half an M)
  • (Irish) An act of French kissing someone
  • Antonyms
    * (greatest lower bound) join
    Derived terms
    * cornfield meet (train collision) * dual meet * flying meet * meet cute * meet-up/meetup * swim meet * track meet

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) mete, imete, from (etyl) .

    Adjective

    (er)
  • suitable; right; proper
  • * (English Citations of "meet")

    References

    * [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=meet&searchmode=none]

    Statistics

    *

    fine

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) fin, from (etyl) .

    Adjective

    (er)
  • (lb) Of subjective quality.
  • #Of superior quality.
  • #:
  • #*
  • #*:"A fine man, that Dunwody, yonder," commented the young captain, as they parted, and as he turned to his prisoner. "We'll see him on in Washington some day. He is strengthening his forces now against Mr. Benton out there.."
  • #(lb) Being acceptable, adequate, passable, or satisfactory.
  • #:
  • #*
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=3 , passage=Now all this was very fine , but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.}}
  • #(lb) Good-looking, attractive.
  • #:
  • #*, chapter=10
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room. Listening here was as pleasant as talking; just to watch was pleasant. The young priests who lived here wore cassocks and birettas; their faces were fine and mild, yet really strong, like the rector's face; and in their intercourse with him and his wife they seemed to be brothers.}}
  • #Subtle, delicately balanced.
  • #*The Independent
  • #*:The fine distinction between lender of last resort and a bail-out
  • #(lb) Showy; overdecorated.
  • #*(Matthew Arnold) (1822-1888)
  • #*:He gratified them with occasionalfine writing.
  • #Delicate; subtle; exquisite; artful; dexterous.
  • #*(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
  • #*:The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine !
  • #*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • #*:The nicest and most delicate touches of satire consist in fine raillery.
  • #*(Thomas Gray) (1716-1771)
  • #*:He has as fine a hand at picking a pocket as a woman.
  • (lb) Of objective quality.
  • #Of a particular grade of quality, usually between very good'' and ''very fine'', and below ''mint .
  • #:
  • #(lb) Sunny and not raining.
  • #*, chapter=23
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=If the afternoon was fine they strolled together in the park, very slowly, and with pauses to draw breath wherever the ground sloped upward. The slightest effort made the patient cough.}}
  • #Consisting of especially minute particulate; made up of particularly small pieces.
  • #:
  • #Particularly slender; especially thin, narrow, or of small girth.
  • #:
  • #Made of slender or thin filaments.
  • #:
  • #Having a (specified) proportion of pure metal in its composition.
  • #:
  • (lb) Behind the batsman and at a small angle to the line between the wickets.
  • :
  • (lb) Subtle; thin; tenuous.
  • *(Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
  • *:The eye standeth in the finer medium and the object in the grosser.
  • Synonyms
    * (of superior quality) good, excellent * (informal) (being acceptable, adequate, passable, or satisfactory ): all right, ok, , okay, hunky-dory, kosher * (made up of particularly small pieces) fine-grained, powdered, powdery, pulverised, pulverized, small-grained * (made of slender or thin filaments) fine-threaded
    Antonyms
    * (made up of particularly small pieces) coarse * (made of slender or thin filaments) coarse

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • expression of agreement
  • well, nicely, in a positive way
  • Everything worked out fine.
    Synonyms
    * (expression of agreement) all right, alright, OK, very well

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Fine champagne; French brandy.
  • * 1926 , Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises , Scribner 2003, p. 14:
  • We had dined at l'Avenue's, and afterward went to the Café de Versailles for coffee. We had several fines after the coffee, and I said I must be going.
  • * 1936 , Djuna Barnes, Nightwood , Faber & Faber 2007, p. 18:
  • He refilled his glass. ‘The fine is very good,’ he said.
  • (usually, in the plural) something that is fine; fine particles
  • * They filtered silt and fines out of the soil.
  • Usage notes
    Particularly used in plural as fines of ground coffee beans in espresso making.
    See also
    * filing

    Verb

    (fin)
  • to make finer, purer, or cleaner; to purify or clarify.
  • to fine gold
  • * Hobbes
  • It hath been fined and refined by learned men.
  • to become finer, purer, or cleaner.
  • To make finer, or less coarse, as in bulk, texture, etc.
  • to fine the soil
  • To change by fine gradations.
  • to fine down a ship's lines, i.e. to diminish her lines gradually
  • * Browning
  • I often sate at home / On evenings, watching how they fined themselves / With gradual conscience to a perfect night.
  • to clarify (wine and beer) by filtration.
  • Synonyms
    * (to make or become finer, purer, or cleaner ): clarify, refine, purify

    Derived terms

    * chance'd be a fine thing * cut it fine * fine art * fine as frog hair * fine feathers make fine birds * fine-grained * fine leg * fine line * finely * fineness * fine print * fine-structure constant * fine-tooth comb * fine-tune * fine words butter no parsnips * * just fine * to a fine fare-thee-well

    Etymology 2

    (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A fee levied as punishment for breaking the law.
  • * The fine for jay-walking has gone from two dollars to thirty in the last fifteen years.
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006, author=
  • , title=Internal Combustion , chapter=2 citation , passage=The popular late Middle Ages fictional character Robin Hood, dressed in green to symbolize the forest, dodged fines for forest offenses and stole from the rich to give to the poor. But his appeal was painfully real and embodied the struggle over wood.}}
    Synonyms
    * amercement

    Verb

  • To issue a fine as punishment to (someone).
  • * She was fined a thousand dollars for littering, but she appealed.
  • To pay a fine.
  • * Hallam
  • Men fined' for the king's good will; or that he would remit his anger; women ' fined for leave to marry.
    Synonyms
    * amerce

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) ("end").

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (music) The end of a musical composition.
  • (music) The location in a musical score that indicates the end of the piece, particularly when the piece ends somewhere in the middle of the score due to a section of the music being repeated.
  • Usage notes
    This word is virtually never used in speech and therefore essentially confined to musical notation.
    Derived terms
    * da capo al fine=

    Etymology 4

    (etyl) finer, (etyl) finir. See (finish) (transitive verb).

    Verb

    (fin)
  • (obsolete) To finish; to cease.
  • (obsolete) To cause to cease; to stop.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) End; conclusion; termination; extinction.
  • * Spenser
  • to see their fatal fine
  • * Shakespeare
  • Is this the fine of his fines?
  • A final agreement concerning lands or rents between persons, as the lord and his vassal.
  • (Spelman)
  • (UK, legal) A sum of money or price paid for obtaining a benefit, favor, or privilege, as for admission to a copyhold, or for obtaining or renewing a lease.
  • (Webster 1913)

    Statistics

    *