The Collaborative International Dictionary
Rencounter \Ren*coun"ter\ (r?n-koun"t?r), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Rencountered (-t?rd); p. pr. & vb/ n. Rencountering.] [F. rencontrer; pref. re- + OF. encontrer to encounter. See Encounter.]
To meet unexpectedly; to encounter.
To attack hand to hand. [Obs.]
--Spenser.
Rencounter \Ren*coun"ter\, v. i. To meet unexpectedly; to encounter in a hostile manner; to come in collision; to skirmish.
Rencounter \Ren*coun"ter\, n. [F. rencontre, from renconter to meet.]
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A meeting of two persons or bodies; a collision; especially, a meeting in opposition or contest; a combat, action, or engagement.
The justling chiefs in rude rencounter join.
--Granville. -
A causal combat or action; a sudden contest or fight without premeditation, as between individuals or small parties.
The confederates should . . . outnumber the enemy in all rencounters and engagements.
--Addison.Syn: Combat; fight; conflict; collision; clash.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context archaic English) An encounter between opposing forces; a conflict. 2 (context archaic English) An encounter or chance meeting. vb. 1 (context archaic transitive English) To meet, encounter, come into contact with. 2 To attack hand to hand.
Usage examples of "rencounter".
Our worthy acquaintance Mr Malachi Mulligan now appeared in the doorway as the students were finishing their apologue accompanied with a friend whom he had just rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec Bannon, who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or a cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars.
They immediately despatched Paw, pensionary of Holland, as their ambassador extraordinary to London, and ordered him to lay before the parliament the narrative which Tromp had sent of the late rencounter.
He was not so successful at Rantowles on the 23d of the same month, where in a rencounter with Col. Washington, his dragoons were roughly handled, and retreated with loss.
Our worthy acquaintance Mr Malachi Mulligan now appeared in the doorway as the students were finishing their apologue accompanied with a friend whom he had just rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec Bannon, who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or a cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars.
He had heard, upon enquiry, that the only persons who had seen the beginning of the unfortunate rencounter were a crew belonging to a man-of-war which then lay at Deptford.
Him I found already at his desk and already bedabbled with maccabaw, in the same anteroom where I rencountered with James More.
We left Musselburgh before the first ninepenny coach was due from Edinburgh for (as Alan said) that was a rencounter we might very well avoid.
Our hard entrance into the World, our miserable going out of it, our sicknesses, disturbances, and sad Rencounters in it, do clamorously tell us we come not into the World to run a Race of Delight, but to perform the sober Acts and serious purposes of Man.
And to that had destiny subjoined this rencounter to-night, which had, in Bathsheba’s wild imagining, turned her companion’s failure to success, her humiliation to triumph, her lucklessness to ascendency.