Encounter | Vocabulary | Khan Academy

Hello wordsmiths! I hope luck is with us today because on the high seas of vocabulary, there's no telling what word we'll encounter.

Encounter. It's a verb, a noun too. The verb means to unexpectedly meet with someone or something, to come face to face with something. As a noun, it means much the same thing: an unexpected face-to-face meeting. Let's head over to the derivation station and break this word down into its constituent parts.

"Con" meaning "with" and "tra" meaning "against." The original meaning of "on contre" in French was to confront or fight someone, so you're up against someone, in their face, opposed to them. Let's take those word parts "con" and "tra" and see what other words we can make from them. I'll give you 10 seconds during this music break. Ready? Here we go.

Okay, here are some that I came up with. There's "contrast" to show differences. Right? If I'm contrasting an apple with an orange, I'm holding one up against the other and saying what's different between these two fruits. "Entice" to draw in, to tempt. The scent of freshly baked cookies enticed you into the kitchen. And "contrary," right? A word meaning opposite, opposed, against something. If you say you're in favor of cookies and I'm opposed to cookies, I'll say, "On the contrary, my friend, I reject your cookie proposal in favor of beans."

Go on, ask me about my favorite bean. Oh, too late! It's good Mother Stallard. That's my favorite bean varietal. I'm extremely cool, but enough of this bean business.

Wordsmiths, you and I have an encounter with destiny, and our destiny is to use the word "encounter" in some sentences. First, let's use it as a verb: on the 70th day of its voyage, The Good Ship undertook to encounter a giant squid in a terrible mood. Nothing good ever happens to The Good Ship Undertow, so they encountered; they met up with. Maybe they even had to fight that giant squid, or maybe she just needed a hug. Look at her! She's having a bad day.

Okay, and now let's try it in noun form: it was only a brief encounter, but I think I met a merman! Right? So, the speaker was only face-to-face with the merman for a short time. Not all encounters are conflicts; it can also just be running into someone unexpectedly. Like a myman. For my part, I have never encountered a myr person of any gender, but if I did, I would tell them the same thing I'm telling you: you can learn anything.

David out.