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What is the difference between greeting and accost?

greeting | accost |

As nouns the difference between greeting and accost

is that greeting is a conventional phrase used to start a letter or conversation or otherwise to acknowledge a person's arrival or presence while accost is (rare) address; greeting.

As verbs the difference between greeting and accost

is that greeting is (greet) while accost is to approach and speak to boldly or aggressively, as with a demand or request.

greeting

English

Noun

  • A conventional phrase used to start a letter or conversation or otherwise to acknowledge a person's arrival or presence.
  • (uncountable) The action of the verb to greet .
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2 , passage=I had occasion […] to make a somewhat long business trip to Chicago, and on my return […] I found Farrar awaiting me in the railway station. He smiled his wonted fraction by way of greeting , […], and finally leading me to his buggy, turned and drove out of town.}}

    See also

    * hello * salutation

    Verb

    (head)
  • accost

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To approach and speak to boldly or aggressively, as with a demand or request.
  • *{{quote-news, date = 21 August 2012
  • , first = Ed , last = Pilkington , title = Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die? , newspaper = The Guardian , url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/21/death-penalty-trial-reggie-clemons?newsfeed=true , page = , passage = The Missouri prosecutors' case against Clemons, based partly on incriminating testimony given by his co-defendants, was that Clemons was part of a group of four youths who accosted the sisters on the Chain of Rocks Bridge one dark night in April 1991. }}
  • (obsolete) To join side to side; to border; hence, to sail along the coast or side of.
  • * So much [of Lapland] as accosts the sea. - Fuller
  • (obsolete) To approach; to come up to.
  • (Shakespeare)
  • To speak to first; to address; to greet.
  • * Milton
  • Him, Satan thus accosts .
  • * 1847 , , (Jane Eyre), Chapter XVIII
  • She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request—"She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink."
  • (obsolete) To adjoin; to lie alongside.
  • * Spenser
  • the shores which to the sea accost
  • * Fuller
  • so much [of Lapland] as accosts the sea
  • To solicit sexually.
  • Derived terms

    * accostment

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (rare) Address; greeting.
  • Anagrams

    *