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recreate

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English has two verbs spelled recreate: recreate "to refresh", borrowed from Latin in the 15th century,[1][2] and re-create "to create anew", from the late 16th century, now usually hyphenated.[1][3][4]

Pronunciation

  • /ˈɹɛk.ɹi.eɪt/[5]

recreate1 refresh, amuse

Etymology

The verb meaning to refresh is inherited from Middle English recreaten,[6][7][4] borrowed from Latin recreō (“to create anew; to restore, refresh, revive”), from its past participle recreātus,[1][2][3][6][8] formed from re- (“again”) and creō (“to create”).[1][7][9] In post-classical Latin the verb also meant to create anew in Christ (3rd century).[1] The OED compares Anglo-Norman recreer and récréer,[1] and the Anglo-Norman verb, recorded from 1121–25, already meant to create again, to restore and to refresh with food or comfort.[10] It is related to recreation and create.[2][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Reflexively, to refresh oneself: about 1425, in the Book of the Foundation of St Bartholomew's, of a man who rested and recreate hym with a little sleep.[6][1] Dictionary.com dates the word 1425–75,[4] and Etymonline gives "refresh or cheer" from the late 15th century.[2]

Semantic evolution

The first senses concerned the body: to restore someone from weakness or tiredness (c. 1425).[1] Before 1500, in Henryson, it also meant to cheer a person with comfort, a use now obsolete.[1][11] From 1530, in Palsgrave, and 1531, in Elyot, the verb was used of refreshing oneself or others with a pleasant pastime,[1] and was used intransitively for "to take recreation" from 1589, now chiefly North American.[1][2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to refresh after toil; to amuse or divert in weariness", quoting Shakespeare's "To walk abroad and recreate yourselves".[12] A rare 17th- and 18th-century sense was "to restore to life".[1] Collins now labels the verb rare.[13]

Timeline

  • c. 1425 – to refresh, restore from exhaustion.[1][6]
  • before 1500 – to cheer with comfort (obsolete by 1834).[1]
  • 1530 – reflexive, to amuse or refresh oneself with a pastime.[1]
  • 1531 – to refresh or amuse another.[1]
  • 1589 – intransitive, to take recreation.[1]
  • 1631 – to restore to life (rare; obsolete after 1785).[1]
  • 1755 – Johnson defines it as refreshing after toil.[12]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To refresh or amuse oneself or another through a pleasant pastime or diversion.[13][3][1]
  2. To take recreation: On weekends they recreate at the lake.[1][2]
  3. To restore the strength of; to revive or refresh after tiredness.[3][1]
  4. (now rare) To cheer with comfort or encouragement.[11][3][1]

Word family

  • recreative
  • recreatively
  • recreativeness
  • recreator

recreate2 create anew

Etymology

The verb meaning to create anew is formed from English re- + create according to most dictionaries.[2][3][11][4][8] The OED thinks that it was probably at first the Latin borrowing recreate1, later reanalysed as re- + create and now pronounced like other formations in re-.[1] Create is from Latin creō (“to create, make”).[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To create again or in a new way: 1587, in the translation of Mornay's treatise by Sir Philip Sidney and Arthur Golding.[1][3] Etymonline and Dictionary.com date it to the 1580s.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The sense widened in the 19th century to reproducing something in the imagination or by special effects, or to re-enacting it, first recorded in 1837 in Hawthorne.[1] Merriam-Webster likewise has a sense of forming anew in the mind.[3] A past participle adjective recreate, "created again", was used in the 19th century.[1][11]

Timeline

  • 1587 – to create again.[1][3]
  • 1837 – to reproduce in the imagination or by an effect; to re-enact.[1]
  • 1855 – adjective recreate, created again (rare; obsolete).[1]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To create again; to make anew: The town recreated its old market square after the fire.[13][3][1]
  2. To reproduce something in the imagination, or by artistic or special means; to re-enact: The museum re-creates a Victorian street.[3][1]

Word family

  • re-creator
  • re-creatable
  • re-creative

Usage notes

The two verbs are told apart by pronunciation, recreate "to refresh" with the stress on the first syllable and re-create "to create anew" with a full re- and the stress on -ate,[1][13] and the second is usually written with a hyphen.[13][3][4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  6. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  11. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins