"meet cute" meaning in English

See meet cute in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈmiːt ˌkjuːt/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˈmit ˌkjuːt/ [General-American] Audio: en-au-meet cute.ogg [Australia] Forms: meet cutes [plural]
Etymology: Accidentally coined by German-American film director Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947), who had difficulty speaking English, to describe the encounter between the characters played by Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper in the 1938 film Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife. Head templates: {{en-noun}} meet cute (plural meet cutes)
  1. (narratology, informal) A situation in a film, television series, etc., in which a potential romantic couple meet for the first time in a way that is considered adorable, amusing, or cute. Tags: informal Categories (topical): Narratology, Plot devices, Romance fiction Synonyms: cute meet, meet-cute
    Sense id: en-meet_cute-en-noun-lLyKPcTC Disambiguation of Plot devices: 62 9 29 Disambiguation of Romance fiction: 67 9 25 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 50 16 33 Topics: human-sciences, linguistics, narratology, sciences
  2. (by extension, informal) Any such situation occurring in real life between a pair of people who are not yet acquainted, romantically or otherwise. Tags: broadly, informal
    Sense id: en-meet_cute-en-noun-zbBP~ZVe

Verb

IPA: /ˈmiːt ˌkjuːt/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˈmit ˌkjuːt/ [General-American] Audio: en-au-meet cute.ogg [Australia] Forms: meets cute [present, singular, third-person], meeting cute [participle, present], met cute [participle, past], met cute [past]
Etymology: Accidentally coined by German-American film director Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947), who had difficulty speaking English, to describe the encounter between the characters played by Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper in the 1938 film Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife. Head templates: {{en-verb|meet<,,met> cute}} meet cute (third-person singular simple present meets cute, present participle meeting cute, simple past and past participle met cute)
  1. (intransitive, informal) Of characters in a story or people in real life: to meet each other in an adorable, amusing, or cute way. Tags: informal, intransitive Synonyms: cute-meet
    Sense id: en-meet_cute-en-verb-kAR~yf7Z

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for meet cute meaning in English (11.5kB)

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  "etymology_text": "Accidentally coined by German-American film director Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947), who had difficulty speaking English, to describe the encounter between the characters played by Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper in the 1938 film Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife.",
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          "text": "In some respects, it might be too faithful to the genre it savages; as in many real rom-coms, the energy flags during the plot’s backstretch, and audiences may share the drifting interest of Kyle (Bill Hader) and Karen (Ellie Kemper), who come to regret ever asking Joel and Molly to chronicle their meet-cute.",
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          "text": "When Wade first crosses paths with Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), the ass-kicking fellow “gunter” (or egg hunter) with whom he becomes infatuated, the pair’s meet cute is predicated on the swapping of favorite pop-culture quotes.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "2021 December 26, Alys Fowler, “My winter of love: I was homesick in New York. The quiet Danish poet was just what I was longing for”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "Café Pick Me Up was a cosy little place with a low pressed-metal ceiling, crammed full of tiny tables, with French cafe chairs and mellow lighting. If you were to write a romcom featuring a meet cute, you’d set it there.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "text": "A short meet-cute dialogue ensues, detailing exactly how many hours of interviews [Steven] Levitt had agreed to (two), and exactly how much of his time [Stephen] Dubner actually ended up taking (three days).",
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  "etymology_text": "Accidentally coined by German-American film director Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947), who had difficulty speaking English, to describe the encounter between the characters played by Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper in the 1938 film Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife.",
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        {
          "ref": "1937 May 22, Alan Campbell, “They Meet Cute”, in The New Yorker, volume 13, number 14, New York, N.Y.: New Yorker Magazine, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 37, column 1",
          "text": "\"The rest of the script is fine, boys,\" said Mr. Trumpett. \"You've got nice situations and I like the way you've handled your story line and I like your finish—we're going to have a nice little picture when we get through with it—but, frankly, I don't like your beginning. They don't meet cute.\"",
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        {
          "ref": "1943, John P[hillips] Marquand, “Well, Hardly That”, in So Little Time, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, pages 287–288",
          "text": "\"Perhaps they don't meet cute enough,\" Mae said. You could not get away from the studio jargon. \"Meeting cute\" meant roughly that our hero did something like stepping on a banana peel, losing his balance and sliding on his behind up to the girl, though of course there were infinite variations.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997 November 25, Robert Hofler, “Film: Love and Death”, in The Advocate, number 747, Los Angeles, Calif.: Liberation Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 59",
          "text": "What does it say about the new Hollywood that a gay character dying of AIDS complications is now a plot device in a movie romance? Yes, Robert Downey Jr. dies so that Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski can meet cute (as screenwriters like to say) in Mike Figgis's One Night Stand.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002 September, Rob Byrnes, “Life before Frank … and Why I Particularly Hate Nicholas Hafner”, in The Night We Met, New York, N.Y.: Kensington Books, page 2",
          "text": "And, of course, we met cute. / \"Hey,\" he said, approaching me as I stood alone back to the wall of a Greenwich Village bar late one Friday night. \"Aren't you a friend of John's?\" / \"I know a lot of Johns,\" I replied dryly. / \"I thought so,\" he said and flashed a dazzling, inviting smile. \"Can I buy you a beer?\"",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2007, Wanda Balzano, Anne Mulhall, Moynagh Sullivan, Irish Postmodernisms and Popular Culture, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, page 117",
          "text": "The viewer as outsider is invited to contemplate the ‘primitive vitality’ of an alien, multi-ethnic, and lower-class culture. In [James] Cameron’s screenplay [of Titanic (1997)], Rose (Kate Winslet), a young society woman, ‘meets cute’ with Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio), a poor artist who has won a lottery earning him a passage on the maiden voyage of the fated liner.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008, Lori Wilde [pseudonym; Laurie Blalock Vanzura], Addicted to Love, New York, N.Y.: Forever; republished as chapter 1, in Valentine, Texas, New York, N.Y.: Forever, 2018",
          "text": "If you're not married, then this is a cute meet. I'm a sucker for meeting cute.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 June 15, Manohla Dargis, “‘Asteroid City’ Review: Our Town and Country”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "Midge and Augie meet cute at the diner, but their relationship blooms while they’re in their respective rental cabins.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "(intransitive, informal) Of characters in a story or people in real life: to meet each other in an adorable, amusing, or cute way."
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          "text": "The hunt for love saturates Western culture. […] Romantic comedies have characters discover one another serendipitously, called \"meet-cutes.\" The lead clumsily spills a drink on his future love interest, setting off a chain of events to love. Meet-cutes affirm the idea that possibility is all around us: love can happen anywhere, at anytime, and with anyone.",
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          "text": "In some respects, it might be too faithful to the genre it savages; as in many real rom-coms, the energy flags during the plot’s backstretch, and audiences may share the drifting interest of Kyle (Bill Hader) and Karen (Ellie Kemper), who come to regret ever asking Joel and Molly to chronicle their meet-cute.",
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          "text": "When Wade first crosses paths with Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), the ass-kicking fellow “gunter” (or egg hunter) with whom he becomes infatuated, the pair’s meet cute is predicated on the swapping of favorite pop-culture quotes.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "2021 December 26, Alys Fowler, “My winter of love: I was homesick in New York. The quiet Danish poet was just what I was longing for”, in The Guardian",
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        "(narratology, informal) A situation in a film, television series, etc., in which a potential romantic couple meet for the first time in a way that is considered adorable, amusing, or cute."
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          "word": "cute meet"
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          "text": "A short meet-cute dialogue ensues, detailing exactly how many hours of interviews [Steven] Levitt had agreed to (two), and exactly how much of his time [Stephen] Dubner actually ended up taking (three days).",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "(by extension, informal) Any such situation occurring in real life between a pair of people who are not yet acquainted, romantically or otherwise."
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      "ipa": "/ˈmit ˌkjuːt/",
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    "en:Romance fiction"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Accidentally coined by German-American film director Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947), who had difficulty speaking English, to describe the encounter between the characters played by Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper in the 1938 film Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "meets cute",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "meeting cute",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "met cute",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "met cute",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "meet<,,met> cute"
      },
      "expansion": "meet cute (third-person singular simple present meets cute, present participle meeting cute, simple past and past participle met cute)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English informal terms",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1937 May 22, Alan Campbell, “They Meet Cute”, in The New Yorker, volume 13, number 14, New York, N.Y.: New Yorker Magazine, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 37, column 1",
          "text": "\"The rest of the script is fine, boys,\" said Mr. Trumpett. \"You've got nice situations and I like the way you've handled your story line and I like your finish—we're going to have a nice little picture when we get through with it—but, frankly, I don't like your beginning. They don't meet cute.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1943, John P[hillips] Marquand, “Well, Hardly That”, in So Little Time, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, pages 287–288",
          "text": "\"Perhaps they don't meet cute enough,\" Mae said. You could not get away from the studio jargon. \"Meeting cute\" meant roughly that our hero did something like stepping on a banana peel, losing his balance and sliding on his behind up to the girl, though of course there were infinite variations.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997 November 25, Robert Hofler, “Film: Love and Death”, in The Advocate, number 747, Los Angeles, Calif.: Liberation Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 59",
          "text": "What does it say about the new Hollywood that a gay character dying of AIDS complications is now a plot device in a movie romance? Yes, Robert Downey Jr. dies so that Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski can meet cute (as screenwriters like to say) in Mike Figgis's One Night Stand.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002 September, Rob Byrnes, “Life before Frank … and Why I Particularly Hate Nicholas Hafner”, in The Night We Met, New York, N.Y.: Kensington Books, page 2",
          "text": "And, of course, we met cute. / \"Hey,\" he said, approaching me as I stood alone back to the wall of a Greenwich Village bar late one Friday night. \"Aren't you a friend of John's?\" / \"I know a lot of Johns,\" I replied dryly. / \"I thought so,\" he said and flashed a dazzling, inviting smile. \"Can I buy you a beer?\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Wanda Balzano, Anne Mulhall, Moynagh Sullivan, Irish Postmodernisms and Popular Culture, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York, N.Y.: Palgrave Macmillan, page 117",
          "text": "The viewer as outsider is invited to contemplate the ‘primitive vitality’ of an alien, multi-ethnic, and lower-class culture. In [James] Cameron’s screenplay [of Titanic (1997)], Rose (Kate Winslet), a young society woman, ‘meets cute’ with Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio), a poor artist who has won a lottery earning him a passage on the maiden voyage of the fated liner.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008, Lori Wilde [pseudonym; Laurie Blalock Vanzura], Addicted to Love, New York, N.Y.: Forever; republished as chapter 1, in Valentine, Texas, New York, N.Y.: Forever, 2018",
          "text": "If you're not married, then this is a cute meet. I'm a sucker for meeting cute.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 June 15, Manohla Dargis, “‘Asteroid City’ Review: Our Town and Country”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "Midge and Augie meet cute at the diner, but their relationship blooms while they’re in their respective rental cabins.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of characters in a story or people in real life: to meet each other in an adorable, amusing, or cute way."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "character",
          "character"
        ],
        [
          "story",
          "story"
        ],
        [
          "real life",
          "real life"
        ],
        [
          "meet",
          "meet#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "adorable",
          "adorable"
        ],
        [
          "amusing",
          "amusing#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "cute",
          "cute"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, informal) Of characters in a story or people in real life: to meet each other in an adorable, amusing, or cute way."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmiːt ˌkjuːt/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmit ˌkjuːt/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "en-au-meet cute.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a9/En-au-meet_cute.ogg/En-au-meet_cute.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/En-au-meet_cute.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "cute-meet"
    },
    {
      "word": "meet-cute"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Claudette Colbert",
    "Ernst Lubitsch",
    "Gary Cooper"
  ],
  "word": "meet cute"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.