recover

ri-KUV-ur/ɹɪˈkʌvɚ/UKri-KUV-uh/ɹɪˈkʌvə/

16 meanings of recover

1
verbintransitive
To return to good health or to a stronger condition after illness, injury, or hardship.
Most patients recover completely within six weeks of this surgery.
Tourism in the region never quite recovered after the airport closed.
Similarrecuperate, heal, rally, revive, rebound
Oppositedeteriorate, worsen, decline, relapse
2
verbtransitive
To get back or regain a physical object, or, in astronomy and navigation, sight of an object or a signal.
Searchers recovered the flight data recorder two days after the crash.
Astronomers managed to recover the comet on its return after losing track of it for months.
Similarretrieve, regain, reclaim, find
Oppositelose
Note
The oldest thread of the word runs back through Anglo-Norman and Old French to Latin recuperāre, which also gave English recuperate, so the two words are doublets. Here what comes back is concrete: a lost wallet, or all that the Amalekites had carried away in the King James Bible of 1611. Astronomers and navigators extend it to sight or signal, so recovering an asteroid means finding it in the sky again.
3
verbtransitive
To salvage, extricate, or rescue a person or thing from a wreck, danger, or other difficult situation.
Salvage crews recovered most of the cargo from the sunken freighter.
It took hours to recover the driver from the crumpled vehicle.
Similarsalvage, rescue, retrieve, extricate
4
verbtransitive
To regain or restore a good state of mind or body, such as one's strength, breath, or composure.
He sat down for a moment to recover his composure before the interview.
A week of rest helped her recover her usual optimism.
Similarregain, recapture, restore
Oppositelose
5
verbintransitive
To regain one's composure, balance, or poise after a stumble or an awkward moment.
The speaker lost her place mid-sentence but recovered gracefully.
Gymnasts train to recover instantly after a shaky landing.
Similarrally, regroup, steady
6
verbtransitive
To obtain money or other compensation for a loss or injury, usually through a formal legal process.
The plaintiff recovered substantial damages for breach of contract.
Investors sued to recover the funds lost in the fraudulent scheme.
Similarrecoup
Oppositelose
Note
Here the law names its object: one recovers damages in trespass, debt and costs, or, in older property law, lands in ejectment or by common recovery. Recoup is the close synonym, and like recoup this sense moves easily outside the courtroom, as when people speak of recovering an investment with no lawsuit in view. The object is the compensation, not the thing originally lost.
7
verbintransitive
To obtain a favorable judgment in a lawsuit; to win one's case.
The plaintiff recovered against both defendants at trial.
An injured party cannot recover without first proving negligence.
Similarprevail, win
Oppositelose
Note
Lawyers use this sense without an object: the plaintiff recovered, and the sentence is complete. What was won need not be money, because a declaration in one's favor and a cleared name count too. Once the award itself is named, the verb turns transitive and becomes recovering damages or costs. A quick test is to ask "recovered what?" If the sentence answers, you are in that neighboring sense.
8
USree-KUV-ur/ˌɹiˈkʌvɚ/UKree-KUV-uh/ˌɹiːˈkʌvə/
verbtransitive
To cover again, as by replacing an old covering with a new one.
She recovered the armchair in a striped linen.
The binder offered to recover the damaged book in fresh leather.
Similarreupholster
Note
A separate word that happens to share the spelling: re- plus cover, built in English rather than inherited from Latin recuperāre. Because the two meanings collide in print, writers often hyphenate this one as re-cover. In she re-covered the chair, the hyphen tells the reader the chair got new fabric, and was not lost and found again.
9
USree-KUV-ur/ˌɹiˈkʌvɚ/UKree-KUV-uh/ˌɹiːˈkʌvə/
verbtransitive
In roofing, to lay a new membrane or steep-slope covering on top of an existing roof.
The contractor recovered the warehouse roof with a single-ply membrane.
Many building codes allow crews to recover a roof only once before requiring a full tear-off.
Similarreroof
Note
Roofers have turned the plain sense of covering again into a term of art: a new membrane or steep-slope covering goes on over the existing roof instead of replacing it. In the trade it stands in contrast to a tear-off, where the old covering is removed first. After a recover, the original layer stays in place beneath the new one.
10
nouncountable
A position in firearms drill in which the weapon is held with the lock at shoulder height and the sling facing outward.
On the command, the platoon snapped their rifles to the recover.
She held the recover steadily through the entire inspection.
Note
A term from the manual of arms, made from the verb. In this position the firearm is brought up so that its lock sits at shoulder height, with the sling turned outward. It names a held position during exercises, not a movement, so it takes the article: the recover. The reference to a lock shows that the word belongs to older firearms drill.

11
noundatedcountable
The forward movement in rowing after completing one stroke, made in preparation for taking the next.
Coaches stress keeping the hands level during the recover.
A rushed recover throws off the rhythm of the whole crew.
Similarrecovery
Oppositedrive
Note
A dated rowing term for the return half of the cycle: after pulling one stroke, the rower comes forward to take the next. Rowers now call this phase the recovery, and that is the form to use, since the shorter recover belongs to older writing on the sport. The idea is still getting back, applied to position rather than possessions.
12
verbarchaictransitive
To restore a person to good health, consciousness, or life.
The country air, the physician promised, would recover her within the month.
The wine in my bottle will recover him.
1610, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”
Note
In this use the cure or the healer does the recovering, and the patient is the object. Shakespeare's The Tempest has "the wine in my bottle will recover him," and Rider Haggard still writes "I will recover him" in She (1887). Today the patient is the subject and the verb takes no object, as in the ordinary "get better" sense. Outside period writing, revive or restore is the safer choice.
13
verbarchaictransitive
To compensate for a loss, damage, or injury.
He hoped years of honest dealing would recover the disgrace of his youth.
No apology could recover the insult offered to his host.
Note
The object here is the damage itself, not the thing that was lost: one recovers a fault, a hurt or a lapse by making it good. Abraham Cowley writes in 1665 that he hopes "to recover my late hurt." The phrase to recover lost time follows the same logic, since the time is not found again but made up for.
14
verbarchaictransitive
To get over or shake off (an illness, injury, or other misfortune).
Note
Archaic grammar drops the preposition, so the misfortune itself becomes the object, as in he never fully recovered his daughter's death. Modern English puts from in front of it, as the everyday "get better" sense does, and learners should do the same. Without from, the sentence now risks sounding as if the death were something regained.
15
verbobsoletetransitive
To reach a place; to arrive at a destination.
Except he could recover one of the Cities of Refuge he was to die.
1646, John Hales, Golden Remains of the Ever Memorable Mr. John Hales
The forest is not three leagues off; / If we recover that, we're sure enough.
c. 1590, William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”
Note
Movement toward safety is the old idea here. In Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona the forest is three leagues off, and "if we recover that, we're sure enough." The place usually stands as direct object, though Thomas Fuller in 1639 writes that the Christians "recovered to Antioch." The sense is obsolete, so a modern reader who meets it in old texts should read reach, not regain.
16
nounobsolete
A return to health, or the act or process of regaining something lost; recovery.
Note
An obsolete noun made directly from the verb in Middle English, before recovery took over its work. Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur (1485) has Lancelot shielding the queen from danger "tyl better recouer" is possible. Anyone writing today should use recovery. The bare noun belongs to late medieval and early prose.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of recover apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origins

Meanings 1–7, 10–16

From Middle English 'recoveren', borrowed via Anglo-Norman 'recoverer' and Old French 'recovrer' from Latin 'recuperāre', an alternative form of 'reciperāre'. It is a doublet of 'recuperate', and the noun comes from the verb.

Meanings 8–9

Formed from the prefix 're-' plus the word 'cover'.