rendezvous means A meeting or date. It carries an Arena rating of 1819, earned across 10 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, rendezvous ranks #265 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #969 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #1,119 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #1,254 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
rendezvous is pronounced /ˈɹɒndɪˌvuː/.
Why “rendezvous” is a great word
A prearranged meeting at a specific time and place, often imbued with an air of privacy or secrecy, from the French rendez-vous ("appointment"), a noun use of the imperative phrase rendez vous ("present yourselves"), from se rendre ("to go to, present oneself"), first attested in English circa 1590. Unlike an "appointment," which suggests a formal or professional obligation, or an "assembly," which implies a public gathering, a rendezvous is a pact of presence, a deliberate convergence. It is the lantern signal from a darkened window, the single table reserved in an empty restaurant, the shared breath before a confession—a small, defiant order against the vast indifference of the world.
Etymology
Borrowed from French rendez-vous (“appointment”), noun derived from second person plural imperative of se rendre (“to go to”), literally, “[you (imperative)] go to, get yourself to [a place]”.
noun
- A meeting or date.e.g.“Near-synonym: assignation (hyponymous in modern use)”
- An agreement to meet at a certain place and time.e.g.“Get the party started at the rendezvous at oh six hours.”
- A place appointed for a meeting, or at which persons customarily meet.e.g.“an inn, the free rendezvous of all travellers” — 1821 January 8, [Walter Scott], Kenilworth; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; and John Ballantyne, […]; London: Hurst, Robinson, and
- The appointed place for troops, or for the ships of a fleet, to assemble; also, a place for enlistment.e.g.“The king appointed his whole army to be drawn together to a rendezvous at Marlborough.” — 1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed a
- A set of orbital maneuvers during which two spacecraft arrive at the same orbit and approach to a very close distance.
- A retreat or refuge.e.g.“A rendeuous, a home to fly unto” — c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and E
verb
- To meet at an agreed time and place.e.g.“Let's rendezvous at the bordello at 8:00 and go from there.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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