Other forms: greetings
A greeting is what you say when you meet somebody. A warm greeting, exchange greetings, a greeting card.
Hello, hi, good morning and how do you do are the standard English ones, and which you choose says a great deal about the setting. Season's greetings is the formula on cards. In many languages the greeting varies with time of day and status far more than in English. Note greet, the verb; and that in Scots and northern English to greet means to weep, which is a genuinely confusing overlap.
1noungreetingWhat you say when you meet somebody.
“"Good morning!" was her cheerful greeting to everyone she passed.”
2nounmessageA message of good wishes.
“We sent a card with our warmest greetings for the new year.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
greeting is a form of welcome.
Proto-Germanic
*grōtijaną
Proto-West Germanic
*grōtijan
Old English
grētan
Middle English
greten
English
greet
English, today
greeting
by surface analysis, greet + -ing. greet comes from Middle English greten, from Old English grētan, from Proto-West Germanic grōtijan, from Proto-Germanic grōtijaną. Cognate with Dutch groeten, German grüßen, grüssen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA