When did an athletics meeting become a meet?

10ClarionSt | 21:54 Fri 18th Jul 2008 | Phrases & Sayings

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I mean, you go to a mangement meet do you? Or a committee meet. So what's with the meet bit?

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Quizmonster

Meet has been used to mean a sporting meeting - eg a hunt - since the middle of the 19th century. It has also been used colloquially to mean any other sort of meeting since the late 19th century. So, really, that's what's with the meet bit, 10CS.

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Quizmonster

In all sorts of places both here and in America! In R S Surtees' Jorrocks hunting novels...in The Times...in the American magazine, Outing...in Mark Twain...and so on.
Here's a typically British use of it in a general way..."I dunno 'ow I 'ad the nerve ter speak an' make that meet wiv 'er fer Sundee week!" That's from Sentimental Bloke by C J Dennis, published in 1916.
Seems to have been pretty widespread, really. I don't know, but I imagine, with all the abbreviated management-speak around nowadays, that it's more frequently used now than ever.

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