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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Oedipus the King
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
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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
It was Ghana that tabled the UN resolution, and in June, a summit on reparations was held in its capital, Accra, with delegates from around 80 countries, who concluded that recompense was long overdue.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
And without legal recompense, the only check to this power appears to be other armed men.
From Slate ● Jan. 29, 2026
Here Mr. Stoppard managed to impart a few slivers of his deep knowledge of literary history while exploring the universal theme of a love that cannot find expression or recompense.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 30, 2025
For both Joe and Roger, making it into the shell barges was sweet recompense for days that had been, ever since school began, brutally long and demanding.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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
I pray to Ormuzd, who recompenses good works, who delivers unto the end all those who obey his laws.
You will not be sorry to see that while you warriors are drawing the sword to defend the king, I am animating the pacific arts to ornament the recompenses worthy of you.
From The Vicomte de Bragelonne Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" by Alexandre Dumas père
These little incidental recompenses of the most perfect domestic harmony were realized in everything we undertook.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 by Various
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
Jenkins said he believes the creditors were never fully recompensed, although St John Ambulance says its debt was recouped via advertising at the ground.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 8, 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
In order to make a stronger impression, he then particularizes the general threatening, showing how God's recompensing justice manifests itself in the fate of the individual apostate kings.
From Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
Indeed, if it hadn't been for the recompensing features, Mary's enthusiasm would probably have become chilled by experience, and dreams have come to nothing.
From Mary Minds Her Business by George Weston
There was no question of recompensing the builders of this boat: the product of their labour was regarded as "tribute."
From A History of the Japanese People From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era by F. (Frank) Brinkley
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
