Etymologically
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regain

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Pronunciation

  • /ɹiːˈɡeɪn/[1]

Etymology

It is probably partly borrowed from Middle French regagner (“to win back what was lost”) and partly formed from English re- + gain.[2][3][4][5] Etymonline gives the French form regaigner.[6] The Old French verb, Old French regaaignier, is recorded from the second half of the 12th century,[2] formed from re- (“again”) and gaaignier (“to earn, gain; to capture, win”),[2][6] which came from Frankish *waidanjan (“to hunt, forage”).[6] The OED compares Anglo-Norman regainer (“to retake, win back”), recorded before 1382.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To gain again; to recover possession or use of something lost: 1548, in Hall's Vnion.[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1540s and Dictionary.com to 1540–50.[6][7]

Semantic evolution

From 1592 the verb could take two objects, to win back something for someone, while from 1624 it was used of bringing a group or nation back to a former state.[2] The sense "to get back to a place, to reach again" is recorded before 1600 in the OED[2] but only in the 1630s in Etymonline;[6] the phrase to regain one's feet, to stand up again after a fall, dates from 1654.[2] A use for reclaiming land from the sea appeared in 1652 and did not last.[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to recover; to gain anew", quoting Milton.[8] The noun, an act of regaining or an amount regained, is recorded from 1860, in a book of Morphy's chess games,[2] and the textile sense, the moisture a fibre takes up as a proportion of its dry weight, from 1894.[2][5] Collins uses the noun especially of lost weight that is put back on.[9]

Timeline

  • 1548 – to recover something lost.[2]
  • 1592 – to win back something for someone.[2]
  • before 1600 – to get back to a place.[2]
  • 1652 – to reclaim land from the sea (obsolete).[2]
  • 1654 – to regain one's feet.[2]
  • 1860 – noun, an act of regaining.[2]
  • 1894 – noun, the moisture taken up by a textile.[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To get back something that was lost; to recover: She slowly regained her strength after the operation.
  2. To reach a place again: The climbers regained the hut before dark.
  3. regain one's feet: to stand up again after falling.

Noun

  1. The act of getting something back, especially weight that had been lost.
  2. (textiles) The moisture that a fibre or fabric absorbs under standard conditions, as a percentage of its dry weight.

Word family

  • regainer
  • regainable
  • unregained

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins