recall

UK/ɹɪˈkɔːl/US/ɹɪˈkɔl/

verbB24 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,560 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: recalled, recalls, recalling

To recall is to bring something back into your mind. I cannot recall her name. As I recall, it was raining.

It is more formal than remember and is common in evidence, reports and careful speech. It is a state verb and not used in the continuous. Two other senses matter. A product recall is a manufacturer asking customers to return something faulty, and the verb goes with it: the cars were recalled. And to recall an ambassador is to order them home, which is a serious diplomatic act. Note total recall, meaning a perfect memory.

Definitions of recall

1verbrecallTo bring something back into your mind.B2
“He could not recall a single thing about the morning.”
synonyms: remember, recollect
2verbaskTo ask for a faulty product to be returned.B2
“Forty thousand cars were recalled over a single bolt.”
3nounabilityThe ability to remember.B2
“Her recall of the whole evening was extraordinary.”
4nouncommandTraining that makes a dog come back to you when you call it.C1
“His recall is so reliable that she lets him off the lead in the park.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

Also practised as

nounTraining that makes an animal come when called.

Where it comes from

Middle English
callen
English
call
English, today
recall

From re- + call, probably modelled on revocāre, rappeler, withcall. call comes from Middle English callen. From Middle English callen, from Old English ċeallian (“to call, shout”) and Old Norse kalla (“to call; shout; refer to as; name”); both from Proto-Germanic kalzōną (“to call, shout”), from Proto-Indo-European golH-so- (“voice, cry”), from gel(H)- (“to vocalize, call, shout”). 2

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Thinking & Memory

Practise this word

recall in the wild

There are three main types of recall: free recall, cued recall and serial recall.
Recall (memory)
Psychologists test these forms of recall as a way to study the memory processes of humans and animals.
Recall (memory)
Imperial, Lake, and San Benito counties all voted for the recall after voting for Davis in 2002.
2003 California gubernatorial recall election
The 1978 Cleveland recall election determined whether or not the 53rd Mayor of Cleveland, Dennis Kucinich, would be removed from office.
1978 Cleveland mayoral recall election
The recalls in North America, Europe, and South Africa came in response to reports of kidney failure in pets.
2007 pet food recalls

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

Definitions of recall

1verbrecallTo bring something back into your mind.B2

“He could not recall a single thing about the morning.”

synonyms: remember, recollect

2verbaskTo ask for a faulty product to be returned.B2

“Forty thousand cars were recalled over a single bolt.”

3nounabilityThe ability to remember.B2

“Her recall of the whole evening was extraordinary.”

4nouncommandTraining that makes a dog come back to you when you call it.C1

“His recall is so reliable that she lets him off the lead in the park.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.