greeter

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English greter, gretter, equivalent to greet +‎ -er.

Noun

greeter (plural greeters)

1. A person who greets people on their arrival.

   Walmart greeter

   • 1976, Daniel M. Gaby, Merle H. Treusch, Election Campaign Handbook, page 303:

     The greeter is standing most or all of the time, and the weather may be unpleasant at that time of the year. If the greeter can bring a folding chair to sit on in slow periods, so much the better.

   • 1986, James Cleary, Prosecuting the Shoplifter: A Loss Prevention Strategy, page 220:

     Plaintiff testified that the store greeter was talking in a loud and rude manner.

   • 1995, Paul Seibert, Facilities Planning and Design for Financial Institutions, page 163:

     The greeter makes immediate eye contact with customers, making them feel important, and unknown guests can be addressed as they enter to determine their purpose, which also discourages robbers.

   • 2004, Daniel D. McCracken, Rosalee Jean Wolfe, User-centered Website Development, page 141:

     At the beginning of the test, the greeter welcomes the test user to the test facility and carries out all the necessary pretest activities, which include ice-breaking, explaining the purpose and format of the test, obtaining informed consent, and perhaps administering a pre-test questionnaire.

   • 2014, Annette Schroeder, Welcome to Our Church:

     What do I do if someone faints during the worship service? It's only natural as an usher or greeter to have questions like these.

   • 2024 January 14, Tim Adams, “The big picture: layers of nostalgia on London’s Oxford Street”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     But it is the combination of the self-consciously vintage HMV sign – with all its vinyl associations – and the bowler-hatted man at the kerbside (a now redundant Oxford Street “greeter”) that properly opens up those possibilities.

2. (tourism) A volunteer who shows tourists around their home city or region for free.
   • 1998, Proceedings from the Australian Tourism and Hospitality Research Conference, page 208:

     Visitors are matched with a volunteer Greeter according to shared interests and languages spoken, and their 3-4 hours together is a combination of what the Greeter has to offer and the visitor wants to know.

   • 2013, John A. Richardson, Grey Nomads, page 75:

     The greeter system — a free service provided by volunteers — is popular in several cities throughout the world.

   • 2017, Maria Gravari-Barbas, Sandra Guinand, Tourism and Gentrification in Contemporary Metropolises, page 54:

     This tourism is based on tourists' quest for an 'authentic experience', by spreading throughout the entire city (admittedly with a predilection for gentrifying neighbourhoods), seeking 'off the beaten track' (but always secure) itineraries (Djament-Tran and Guinand, 2014; Maitland, 2013; Maitland and Newman, 2014), going for a walk with a local 'greeter' and, above all, staying in a local's home.

   • 2021, Isabelle Frochot, A Practical Guide to Managing Tourist Experiences:

     Many greeter associations now exist across the world.

Etymology 2

From greet (“to weep”) +‎ -er.

Noun

greeter (plural greeters)

1. (dialectal or obsolete) (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) One who weeps or mourns.

References

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “greeter”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

• “greeter”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

• regreet

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English greeter.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡʁi.tœʁ/

• (file)

Noun

greeter m or f by sense (plural greeters)

1. (tourism, anglicism) greeter (volunteer who shows tourists around their home city or region for free)