Meat vs Meet

“Meat” (noun) means the flesh of an animal used as food. “Meet” (verb) means to come together with someone. Meat and meet are homophones: they sound exactly the same when spoken, but they are spelled differently and mean completely different things.

Yes, “meat” functions as a noun in standard English. The flesh of an animal used as food.

Yes, “meet” functions as a verb in standard English. To come together with someone.

“Meet” has a double “ee” like two people standing side by side meeting each other; “meat” is the food word, spelled with “ea” like many other food nouns (bread, peach).

Here is an example: “We bought fresh meat from the butcher.”

Here is an example: “Let's meet at the station at six o'clock.”

Yes. “Meat” and “meet” are true homophones — in standard English pronunciation they sound identical, even though the spelling and meaning are completely different. You can only tell them apart from context, not from sound.

A homophone is a word that sounds exactly the same as another word but has a different spelling and a different meaning. The term comes from the Greek 'homo' (same) and 'phone' (sound). See the LexFizz Homophones hub and Glossary entry for more examples.

Yes — homophone pairs like meat/meet are a common source of spelling mistakes even for native speakers, because the identical pronunciation gives no clue about which spelling is correct. Spell-checkers often miss these errors too, since both words are spelled correctly — just used in the wrong place.

Practise meat and meet in full sentences rather than as an isolated pair, and quiz yourself with LexFizz's Flash Cards and Quiz exercises. Writing a few of your own example sentences for each word is one of the fastest ways to make the distinction automatic.