variants or less commonly meet cute
plural meet-cutes also meet cutes
: a cute, charming, or amusing first encounter between romantic partners (as in a movie)
It's a meet-cute where they fall immediately in love: her because he's handsome; him because she forgets a pen to write with.Mark Abraham
Rom-com tropes like the "meet-cute" are so tired that you can't just spoof them—you have to spoof the spoofs …Stephan Lee
… upper-middlebrow "meet cutes" such as in Nora Ephron's popular You've Got MailJames Wolcott
meet cute intransitive verb
or less commonly meet-cute
met cute also met-cute; meeting cute also meeting-cute; meets cute also meets-cute
In a charmingly old-fashioned plot, they meet cute, and she thinks it's true love … David Hiltbrand
… a picture-perfect love story about a man who uses paper planes to track down the woman he "met cute" at the train station. Huma Qureshi
… leading two people on a chase through the streets of Paris until they meet-cute in front of the Eiffel Tower. Deb Amlen

Did you know?

Isn’t it cute how two words can be introduced to each other and become an inseparable pair soon after? Well, that’s exactly what happened when meet and cute got together in 1952. The duo was spotted in The New York Times Book Review in 1952 in reference to an unexpected rendezvous: “This may well be, in magazine parlance, the neatest meet-cute of the week—the story of a ghost-writer who falls in love with a ghost.” Today the word is used often to refer to such encounters in films and television series (especially rom-coms and sitcoms). Writers of meet-cutes often develop plots by creating situations in which characters clash in personality, or by creating embarrassing situations in which two eventual romantic partners will meet, or by creating a misunderstanding between characters who will separate but become friends in the end.

Examples of meet-cute in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web In the movie, Sweeney and Powell star as Bea and Ben, who have a meet-cute moment quickly sour after one date. Jordan Moreau, Variety, 19 Mar. 2024 Teenage Allie and Noah meet-cute on the heels of the civil rights movement, when even in the coastal Mid-Atlantic, their interracial sparks could have partly helped explain why Allie’s mother (Andréa Burns) disapproves. Naveen Kumar, Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2024 The meet-cute at the beginning of Love Lies Bleeding, a new thriller directed by Rose Glass, is sweet and refreshingly untraditional. David Sims, The Atlantic, 12 Mar. 2024 Stewart, 82, met the 28-year-old Kansas City Current FC owner – who is married to Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes – during Super Bowl 2024 weekend in Las Vegas, and shared photos from the epic, behind-the-scenes meet-cute on Instagram. Natasha Dye, Peoplemag, 12 Feb. 2024 Their meet-cute is a charmed encounter whose romance is emphasized by a dreamy aesthetic and editing style; the affair is short-lived because of a surprising but poorly revealed twist. Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Mar. 2024 The May-December romance sparked by a Coachella meet-cute was partially inspired by Harry Styles. Sydney Bucksbaum, EW.com, 6 Mar. 2024 Sydney Sweeney doesn’t quite have a meet-cute in the first promo for her Saturday Night Live hosting debut. Christy Piña, The Hollywood Reporter, 28 Feb. 2024 While some people prefer a more organic meet-cute, the massive number of dating sites and apps means there are platforms that cater to almost anyone, allowing people of different backgrounds, identities and preferences to find potential love regardless of geography, busy schedules or other hurdles. USA TODAY, 12 Feb. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'meet-cute.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1952, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of meet-cute was in 1952

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Dictionary Entries Near meet-cute

Cite this Entry

“Meet-cute.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meet-cute. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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