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Definition of accost
transitive verb
: to approach and speak to (someone) often in a challenging or aggressive way He was accosted by a stranger on the street.
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Examples of accost in a Sentence
He was accosted by three gang members on the subway.
She was so famous that people would accost her on the street and ask for an autograph.
Recent Examples of accost from the Web
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Police say the car, which had been stolen in west Charlotte, had been driven by a man who accosted two female joggers in separate incidents Tuesday.
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Lately, I have been accosted by an assertive and nervous killdeer.
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How would Marlene Pinnock prove that she was violently accosted for no reason?
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At Liu Xia's apartment building in Beijing, AP journalists were accosted Monday by half a dozen plainclothes and other security officers and physically blocked from going beyond the first floor.
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At Liu Xia’s apartment building in Beijing, AP journalists were accosted Monday by half a dozen plainclothes and other security officers and physically blocked from going beyond the first floor.
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At Liu's apartment building in Beijing, AP journalists were accosted Monday by half a dozen plainclothes and other security officers and physically blocked from going beyond the first floor.
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According to police, a person was accosted about 10 a.m. in the parking lot of Country Club Bank in the 11100 block of Overbrook Road after completing a business transaction at another bank.
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My knife hovered above the sandwich's diagonal axis, as the sins accosted me: One cut would solve them all; a view of PB&J's gooey signature stripes, a pair of stackable triangles that begged to be grabbed and a wide-open spot for the grapes.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'accost'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Origin and Etymology of accost
borrowed from Middle French accoster, going back to Old French, “to go alongside of, sail along the coast of, place (a vessel) beside another” (s'acoster a “to take a place beside, draw near, support”), probably going back to Vulgar Latin *accostāre, from Latin ad- ad- + costa “rib, side” — more at 1coast ◆A common, polysemous verb in Anglo-French, though the English verb, which only begins to appear in the late 16th century, is apparently borrowed directly from Continental French. The sense “to approach and speak to” only appears in French in the early 17th century, about the same time that it appears in English.
ACCOST Defined for English Language Learners
accost
playDefinition of accost for English Language Learners
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: to approach and speak to (someone) often in an angry, aggressive, or unwanted way
ACCOST Defined for Kids
accost
playDefinition of accost for Students
accosted
;accosting
: to approach and speak to angrily or aggressively
Learn More about accost
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Spanish Central: Translation of accost Nglish: Translation of accost for Spanish speakers
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