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recombine

British  
/ ˌriːkəmˈbaɪn /

verb

  1. to join together again

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Explanation

To recombine is to mix or merge two or more things again. If you lose track of how much baking soda you've added to your cake batter, you might decide to start over and recombine the ingredients more carefully. A collage artist who explores similar themes in different works might tend to recombine the same images again and again. And a scientist studying chemical reactions might recombine chemicals dozens of times before reaching a conclusion. When you combine things, you merge them together. The Latin roots are com-, "together," and bini, "two by two." The re- prefix adds the sense of "again."

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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.

He maps beats as “events” and measures as “cells” that combine and recombine to create larger “organisms.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026

"The more mpox circulation we permit, the more opportunities the virus has to recombine and adapt, further entrenching mpox virus as a human pathogen that is not going away," she said.

From BBC • Dec. 8, 2025

“We shoot proper elements and then recombine them with VFX, but AI is a different beast, so at first I was like, ‘That’s the end of everything,’” he says.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 6, 2024

Electrons in the atmosphere find these ions, and recombine to split the ions in two.

From Science Daily • May 6, 2024

Perhaps it is due to complex brightly colored organic molecules produced when ultraviolet light from the Sun breaks down the methane, ammonia, and water in the Jovian atmosphere and the molecular fragments recombine.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan