Word.ws English Dictionary

greete

greete is the obsolete form of greet.

Meaning of greet

Verb (1)

greet (third-person singular simple present greets, present participle greeting, simple past and past participle greeted)

  1. (transitive) To welcome in a friendly manner, either in person or through another means such as writing.
    • My lord, the mayor of London comes to greet you.c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    Synonyms:
    hail
  2. (transitive) To arrive at or reach, or meet.
    • In vain the Spring my Senſes greets / In all her Colours, all her Svveets; / To me the Roſe / No longer glovvs, / Every Plant / Has loſt its Scent: […]1707, [Joseph Addison], Rosamond. An Opera. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act I, scene ii, page 9
  3. (transitive) To accost; to address.
    • Fair on his feet the polish'd sandals shine,
      And thus he greets the master of the swine:1725–1726, Homer, “(please specify the book or chapter of the Odyssey)”, in [William Broome, Elijah Fenton, Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC
  4. (archaic, intransitive) To meet and give salutations.
    • There greet in silence, as the dead are wont, And sleep in peace.c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  5. (figuratively, transitive) To be perceived by (someone).
    • A brilliant dawn greeted her eyes as she looked out of the window.

Verb (2)

greet (third-person singular simple present greets, present participle greeting, simple past and past participle greeted or grat or grutten)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland) To weep; to cry.
    • And damn't! if he didn't take down her bit things and scone her so sore she grat like a bairn [...].1933, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Cloud Howe (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 312

See all 13 meanings of greet

Forms of greete

third-person singular presentgreetes
present participlegreeting
past participlegreeted
pastgreeted

Questions about greete

What is greete the obsolete form of?
Greete is the obsolete form of greet.

Words near greete in the dictionary

  1. greesings
  2. Greeson
  3. Greesons
  4. greet
  5. greetable
  6. greete
  7. greeted
  8. greetee
  9. greetees
  10. greeter
  11. greeters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: greete (page history and authors); greet (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “greete.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/greete. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.