Etymologically
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recurrence

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Pronunciation

  • US: /rəˈkɝ.əns/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English recurrent + -ence,[2][3][4][5] though Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com take it from recur with the same suffix.[6][7][8] The OED notes that the adjective is first recorded in a general sense slightly later than the noun, and compares Italian recorrenza, recorded in 1611 in Florio, and the slightly earlier English nouns recurrency and recursion.[2] Recurrent is from Latin recurrēns, the present participle of recurrō (“to run back, return; to go back in thought; to revert”),[2][4] from re- (“back, again”) and currō (“to run”), from Proto-Indo-European *kers- (“to run”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

An instance of recurring, a further occurrence: 1626, in Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum.[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1640s,[4] Dictionary.com to 1640–50,[7] and the Shorter Oxford to the mid 17th century.[3]

Semantic evolution

The general sense of frequent or periodic return followed in 1641.[2] In the late 17th century the word also meant recourse or resort to something for help or explanation, a sense used until the mid 19th century;[2][3] Merriam-Webster still lists it.[6] From 1751, in Johnson's Rambler, it was used for going back to something in thought, memory or speech, a sense now rare.[2][3] Medicine adopted it in 1772 for the return of symptoms or of a disease after a remission,[2] and biology in 1862, in Huxley, for the reappearance of an ancestral type in bred animals and plants.[2]

Timeline

  • 1626 – an instance of recurring.[2] Etymonline dates the noun to the 1640s.[4]
  • 1641 – frequent or periodic occurrence.[2]
  • 1697 – recourse, resort (obsolete by 1845).[2]
  • 1751 – a going back to something in thought or speech.[2]
  • 1772 – in medicine, the return of a disease or its symptoms.[2]
  • 1789 – a return to a former state or activity.[2]
  • 1862 – in biology, reversion to an ancestral type.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An instance of recurring; a further occurrence: Engineers took steps to prevent a recurrence of the flooding.[6][2][3]
  2. The fact of recurring; periodic or frequent return; reappearance.[6][2]
  3. In medicine, the return of a disease or its symptoms after a period of remission.[2]
  4. A return to a former state or activity.[2]
  5. The act of going back to something in thought, memory or speech (now rare).[2][3]
  6. (obsolete, 1697–1845) Recourse or resort to something.[2][3][6]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  8. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam