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I usually see 'satisfy the criteria' and 'meet the requirements', but is it acceptable to use 'meet the criteria', or 'satisfy the requirements'?

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3 Answers

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The Oxford Collocations Dictionary says the following:

VERB+criterion: fit, fulfill, meet, satisfy. The Macmillan Collocations Dictionary gives one more verb, "match".

VERB+requirement: comply with, fit, fulfill, match, meet, satisfy, suit. The Macmillan Collocations Dictionary gives three more verbs, "achieve", "adhere to", "conform to".

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I was unaware of that resource. Thanks for the answer. – Superstringcheese May 10 '12 at 15:42
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Google NGram says that both those phrases are in common use, so I guess the answer is yes.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=satisfy+the+requirements%2C+meet+the+criteria&year_start=1800&year_end=2012&corpus=0&smoothing=3

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+1 for the NGram – dj18 May 10 '12 at 13:21
True, but "meet" seems to be the more common word for both criteria and requirements. – zpletan May 10 '12 at 13:54
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I see no problem with using either of the proposed phases. In fact, I think I almost prefer meet the criteria and satisfy the requirements.

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