Definition of "accost"

You mistake, knight. ‘Accost’ is front / her, board her, woo her, assail her.

c. 1601–1602, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act 1, scene 3, lines 53–54

Him, Satan thus accosts.

1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost, line 653

She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request—"She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink."

1847, Charlotte Bronte, chapter XVIII, in Jane Eyre

I quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted the grinning landlord very pleasantly.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 5, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley

For all the Shores, which to the Sea accost

1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V”, in The Faerie Queene, canto 2, stanza XLII

Lapland hath since been often surrounded (so much as accosts the sea) by the English.

1662, Thomas Fuller, “Derby-shire”, in History of the Worthies of England

Surveillance video of the incident shows the man and woman being accosted by a man armed with and assault-style handgun.

2017 June 21, Glenn E. Rice, “Police seek two gunmen who accosted Kansas City couple”, in The Kansas City Star‎

The Missouri prosecutors' case against Clemons, based partly on incriminating testimony given by his co-defendants, was that Clemons was part of a group of four youths who accosted the sisters on the Chain of Rocks Bridge one dark night in April 1991.

2012 August 21, Ed Pilkington, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, in The Guardian‎

Gladstone's initial tone of disinterested philanthropy also characterized his first encounters with prostitutes in London once he has moved there to undertake his parliamentary duties. Accosted in a London park in 1837 by two women, Gladstone merely reported of them that "both ... had taken to their miserable calling from losing their livelihood by the death of their husbands."

1997, Travis L. Crosby, The Two Mr. Gladstones

A man does not seize a woman by the sleeve and ask, "Is it you?" without some reason for an address so destitute of ordinary courtesy; and Lucilla was sufficiently versed in such matters to know that so rude and startling an accost could be only addressed to some one whose presence set the speaker's heart beating, and quickened the blood in his veins.

1866, Margaret Oliphant, chapter XXIII, in Miss Marjoribanks (Chronicles of Carlingford)

Anne liked to accost foreigners in their own tongue , but , being ignorant of Spanish , asked M. de Grignaux to teach her a sentence of polite accost in his own language, wherewith to welcome an ambassador from Spain.

1871, Henry Morley, Clement Marot

Great was my amazement to find the unconquerable Mr. Sim thaw immediately on the accost of this strange gentleman, who hailed him with a ready familiarity, proceeded at once to discuss with him the trade of droving and the prices of cattle, and did not disdain to take a pinch from the inevitable ram's horn.

1897, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Drovers”, in St. Ives

At last, when I was already within reach of her, I stopped. Words were denied me; if I advanced I could but clasp her to my heart in silence; and all that was sane in me, all that was still unconquered, revolted against the thought of such an accost.

1887, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Olalla”, in The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables