meet-cute
noun
Mark AbrahamStephan LeeJames WolcottDavid Hiltbrand
Huma Qureshi
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
Lex Goldstein, PEOPLE, 20 Oct. 2025
Callum Turner is shedding some light on his meet-cute with Dua Lipa.
—Anna Kaufman, USA Today, 20 Oct. 2025
Everything leading up to that—the meet-cute, the first kiss, the third-act breakup—is left to the author.
—Karen Ostergren, The Atlantic, 13 Oct. 2025
Desai’s multipart meet-cute lets her challenge neat old-world–new-world dichotomies.
—Sanjena Sathian, Vulture, 23 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for meet-cute
Cite this Entry
“Meet-cute.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meet-cute. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
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