Couple I encountered on way back (4)
I believe the answer is:
item
'couple' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'i encountered on way back' is the wordplay.
'encountered' becomes 'met' ('meet' can be a synonym of 'encounter').
'on way back' says the letters should be written backwards.
'met' reversed gives 'tem'.
'i'+'tem'='ITEM'
(Other definitions for item that I've seen before include "One thing on a list" , "Record" , "Component" , "A thing or unit" , "Seperate article in an enumeration" .)