Synonyms of encountering

encountering

verb

present participle of encounter

1

as in confronting

to come upon face-to-face or as if face-to-face

quite unexpectedly encountered our next-door neighbor while vacationing in Europe

Synonyms & Similar Words

• confronting
• meeting
• catching
• greeting
• happening (upon)
• running into
• stumbling (upon)
• facing
• running across
• bumping into
• running upon
• accosting
• crossing paths (with)
• chancing (upon)
• saluting
• crossing
• passing
• crisscrossing
• crashing (into)
• colliding (with)
• hitting (upon)
• tumbling (to)
• lighting (upon)
• reencountering
• remeeting

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• avoiding
• escaping
• shaking
• evading
• dodging
• eluding
• shunning
• ducking

2

as in finding

to come upon unexpectedly or by chance

we encountered a host of unforeseen problems during the restoration of our 200-year-old house

Synonyms & Similar Words

• finding
• meeting
• facing
• running against
• hitting (upon)
• happening (on or upon)
• discovering
• confronting
• stumbling (on or onto)
• running into
• lighting (on or upon)
• coming across
• tumbling (upon)
• pitching (upon)
• running across
• bumping into
• running upon
• chancing (upon)
• lucking (out, on, onto, or into)
• turning up
• striking

3

as in facing

to enter into contest or conflict with

the troops encountered bands of guerrilla fighters as they made their way across the desert

Synonyms & Similar Words

• facing
• meeting
• engaging
• battling
• fighting
• taking on
• opposing
• emulating
• contending
• rivaling

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• escaping
• evading
• retreating
• eluding

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of encountering

Here, Amer plays a fictional version of himself, a Palestinian refugee who is trying to get legal status while encountering personal and professional roadblocks at every turn. — Maira Garcia, Los Angeles Times, 3 July 2026

Conditions can shift rapidly, even in summer, with climbers encountering ice, rockfall and limited visibility within hours. — James Ward, USA Today, 2 July 2026

As buyers continue encountering AI slop—intelligent-sounding output that's confidently wrong, outdated or so generic it could have been written for anyone—their trust erodes, friction is introduced and deals stall. — Ray Makela, Forbes.com, 30 June 2026

The fraught subject of the proper disposition of those human remains has taken on a new sensitivity — both for the prehistoric people’s Native American successors in Florida, and for the archaeologists and developers encountering them. — Andres Viglucci, Miami Herald, 30 June 2026

When encountering areas of fog, visibility will reduce quickly. — Kansas City Star Weather Bot, Kansas City Star, 27 June 2026

More users have been encountering this situation as Netflix has gradually required that each profile under a Netflix subscription use a unique email address. — Scharon Harding, ArsTechnica, 26 June 2026

Heaton recalled encountering a farmer in Uganda while volunteering there. — Angela Andaloro, PEOPLE, 23 June 2026

Humans deal with these situations using common sense but current AI can freeze when encountering a situation not present in its training data. — New Atlas, 20 June 2026