- engagement
- engagement 1 Engagement, appointment, rendezvous, tryst, assignation, date mean a promise or an agreement to be in an agreed place at a specified time, usually for a particular purpose.Engagement is the general term usable in place of any of the others{
he has no business engagements for the rest of the week
}{an engagement to play golf at four o'clock
}{the lecturer can make no more engagements for the season
}Appointment is applied chiefly to an engagement with a person who because of the exigencies of his office, his profession, or his position in life must keep a calendar and apportion his time carefully among those who wish to consult him professionally or confer with him{the governor sees visitors only by appointment
}{the doctor's secretary said it was impossible to make an appointment before Thursday
}Rendezvous may designate a place agreed upon for the meeting of persons, often a group of persons{the old soldiers made the town hall their rendezvous
}but it usually connotes a pledge or covenant (often an implicit one) to meet something or someone that cannot be escaped without violation of one's honor{this generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny— Roosevelt
}Tryst is chiefly poetic; like rendezvous, it may designate the place of meeting (which, however, is more often termed trysting place) as well as the agreement to meet at a certain place, but the latter is the commoner denotation of tryst{a lovers' tryst
}{hurrying to keep their tryst in the wood
}Assignation usually denotes a lovers' tryst, but it commonly conveys a suggestion of an illicit love or of a clandestine meeting{make assignations for them with ladies of the street— Shaw
}Date is used especially of casual engagements between friends or of an agreed meeting between a young man and young woman{remembering suddenly he had a riding date with Major Thompson's wife at 12:30— James Jones
}2 *battle, action
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.