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approach

Pronunciation: /əˈpɹəʊt͡ʃ/

The English word “approach” has 20 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To come or go near, in place or time; to move toward; to advance nearer; to draw nigh.
  2. To play an approach shot.
  3. Used intransitively, followed by to: to draw near (to someone or something); to make advances; to approximate or become almost equal.
  4. Of an immovable object or a number of such objects: to be positioned as to (notionally) appear to be moving towards (a place).
  5. To move toward (someone or something) in place, time, character, or value; to draw nearer to.
  6. To bring (something) near something else; to cause (something) to draw near.
  7. Used when defining limits, preceded by as: To become arbitrarily close to some value, be it a number, vector or infinity and have an effect on another value.
  8. To attempt to make (a policy) or solve (a problem).
  9. To bring up or propose to (someone) an idea, question, request, etc.
  10. To have sexual intercourse with (someone).
  11. To take approaches to (a place); to move towards (a place) by using covered roads, trenches, or other works.

noun

  1. An act of drawing near in place or time; an advancing or coming near.
  2. An act of coming near in character or value; an approximation.
  3. An avenue, passage, or way by which a building or place can be approached; an access.
  4. A path taken to reach the climbing area, for example, from a car park, road, etc.
  5. A manner of making (a policy) or solving (a problem, etc.).
  6. An opportunity of drawing near; access.
  7. The way an aircraft comes in to land at an airport.
  8. A specific procedure used for approaching and landing at an airport.
  9. The area before the lane in which a bowler may stand or run up before bowling the ball.

Etymology

From Middle English aprochen, borrowed from Old French aprochier (modern French approcher), from Late Latin appropiāre, a verb based on Latin prope (“near”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pro- (a variant of *per- (“before, in front; first”)) + *-kʷe (“suffix forming distributives from interrogatives”)).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.