recline
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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half-recliningadjective
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unreclinedadjective
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unrecliningadjective
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reclinableadjective
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half-reclinedadjective
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reclinationnoun
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
has reclinedperfect 3rd person singular
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have reclinedperfect
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is recliningprogressive 3rd person singular
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has been recliningperfect progressive 3rd person singular
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have been recliningperfect progressive
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recliningparticiple
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am recliningprogressive 1st person singular
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are recliningprogressive
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reclinessingular 3rd person
Past
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had reclinedperfect
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were recliningprogressive plural
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had been recliningperfect progressive
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was recliningprogressive singular
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reclinedsimple
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reclinedparticiple
Future
Etymology
Origin of recline
1375–1425; late Middle English reclinen < Latin reclīnāre, equivalent to re- re- + clīnāre to lean 1
Explanation
When you recline, you lounge or lean back. It isn't safe to recline while you're driving a car. However, it's perfectly safe to recline on your couch while you watch TV. When you lie back in your hammock, you recline, and when you tilt your airplane seat into the lap of the person sitting behind you, you recline it. You might even have a special chair that reclines when you lean back in it, magically providing you with a footrest — it's called a recliner. Recline, from the Latin reclinare, "to bend back," shares a Proto-Indo-European root with lean.
Vocabulary lists containing recline
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
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List 10
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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.
Namely, those fees for everything including carry-on bags, soft drinks, coffee, cramped seats that didn’t recline and rocky reliability.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 2, 2026
In other cases, the industrious gizmos recline in circulating baths of fluid, which ferries away the heat they generate, enabling them to function at very high speeds, known as "overclocking".
From BBC • Dec. 22, 2025
You ignore it picking up while you make your nest: secure the corners of your blanket, adjust your umbrella and finally, comfortably recline.
From Salon • Apr. 25, 2025
Several of the ladies are now wearing pink sweats and snuggle on pink blankets on the floor or recline on hot pink blow up chairs to watch — what else? — the “Barbie” movie.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 16, 2023
She sat down on one of the low wooden chairs that slanted so that she had to recline in them in order to rest her back.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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.
