recompense
Americanverb (used with object)
-
recompenses,
present (3rd person singular)
-
recompensed,
past participle, past
-
recompensing
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
recompenses,
present (3rd person singular)
-
recompensed,
past participle, past
-
recompensing
present participle
noun
-
compensation, as for an injury, wrong, etc..
to make recompense for the loss one's carelessness has caused.
- Synonyms:
- satisfaction, indemnification, amends, payment
-
a repayment or requital, as for favors, gifts, etc.
-
a remuneration or reward, as for services, aid, or the like.
verb
-
(tr) to pay or reward for service, work, etc
-
(tr) to compensate for loss, injury, etc
noun
-
compensation for loss, injury, etc
to make recompense
-
reward, remuneration, or repayment
Synonym Usage
See reward.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
recompensernoun
-
underrecompenseverb (used with object)
-
recompensableadjective
-
unrecompensableadjective
-
unrecompensedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
recompensesimple
-
recompensessimple
-
have recompensedperfect
-
has recompensedperfect
-
am recompensingprogressive
-
are recompensingprogressive
-
is recompensingprogressive
-
have been recompensingperfect progressive
-
has been recompensingperfect progressive
Past
-
recompensedsimple
-
had recompensedperfect
-
was recompensingprogressive
-
were recompensingprogressive
-
had been recompensingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of recompense
1375–1425; (v.) late Middle English < Middle French recompenser < Late Latin recompēnsāre, equivalent to Latin re- re- + compēnsāre ( see compensate); (noun) late Middle English < Middle French, derivative of recompenser
Explanation
Say you loan a few bucks to a friend who is short on cash, and he wins the lottery. Presumably, he'll be able to recompense you, or pay you back what he owes. If you look closely at recompense, you'll see how similar it is to compensate, which means to make amends for something or to pay. Add the prefix re-, which suggests returning or repeating, and you get the meaning of recompense — paying back or reimbursing financially or otherwise. Recompense is most often used as a verb, but it works as a noun, too. In recompense for throwing peas and screaming, a mother might send a toddler to her room for a time-out.
Vocabulary lists containing recompense
The Tragedy of Macbeth
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Oedipus the King
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Because China values its access to America’s capital markets, now is the time to seek recompense for American bondholders.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026
And without legal recompense, the only check to this power appears to be other armed men.
From Slate ● Jan. 29, 2026
Grandparents have demanded money as recompense for having spent years caring for a grandson taken in battle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2025
If he feels like the scales aren’t balanced between action and recompense ...
From Los Angeles Times ● May 27, 2024
Perhaps I may be pardoned my naivete; I was but eight, and had given little thought to service and recompense.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
These works are among the great recompenses that experience offers us.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 19, 2014
“The Case for Reparations” is deeply focused on economic injuries and recompenses.
From Washington Post
But the recompenses of friendship were still left to her, and it was surely doing no wrong to accept them.
From The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 Devoted to Literature and National Policy by Various
The want of meaning she supplies with words, and the want of spirit she recompenses with malignity.—Johnson.
From Pearls of Thought by Maturin Murray Ballou
Although recompenses and punishments may be only secondary means by which men may be led to do good and avoid evil, this should not be their essential office nor their real idea.
From Elements of Morals With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State by Paul Janet
Kennedy wasn’t extorted off the bench or recompensed for his vacancy.
From Slate ● Jul. 2, 2018
One need not be a political ideologue, he says, to believe that people have quantifiable value and deserve to be recompensed for it.
From New York Times ● May 5, 2013
It is right that the players should be financially well recompensed for what they do.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 16, 2013
The ECJ says long-delayed passengers should be recompensed as generously as those whose flights were cancelled.
From BBC ● Apr. 16, 2010
When the negotiations were concluded, the gods and Skadi had agreed that she would be recompensed for her father’s death in three ways.
From "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman
Still, Treyzon said that does not deter his suit from examining the platform’s value in recompensing class-action members.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 12, 2019
The IRS seized Nelson’s belongings in 1991 to start recompensing the approximate $32m he owed in taxes at the time.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 15, 2015
How he longed now for the atoning and recompensing moment of the first meeting again, after the next morning!
From Titan: A Romance v. 1 (of 2) by Jean Paul Friedrich Richter
But such privileges should not be continued longer than is necessary for the purpose of reasonably recompensing the adventurers.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 8 "Chariot" to "Chatelaine" by Various
Louis XIV., desirous of duly recompensing the services of the royal favourite, conferred upon her by letters-patent dated January, 1684, the French title of Duchess d’Aubigny.
From Political Women, Vol. 2 by Sutherland Menzies
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
