recapture

verbB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,110 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: recaptured, recapturing, recaptures

To recapture is to catch again, or to bring back a past feeling. Recapture the prisoner, recapture the magic, recapture lost ground.

The figurative use is the commoner and is nearly always wistful, since recapturing the magic is what nobody quite manages. In business it means winning back a share of a market that had been lost.

Definitions of recapture

1verbrecaptureTo catch again, or to bring back a past feeling.B2+
“Police recaptured the escaped prisoner two days later in a nearby town.”

recapture is a retaking.

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*kap-
Latin
captūra
Middle French
capture
English
capture
English, today
recapture

From re- + capture. capture Middle French capture, from Latin captūra. Displaced native fenġ (noun) and ġefōn (verb).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

recapture in the wild

Other names for this method, or closely related methods, include capture-recapture, capture-mark-recapture, mark-recapture, sight-resight, mark-release-recapture, multiple systems estimation, band recovery, the Petersen method, and the Lincoln method.
Mark and recapture
The earlier liberation of Penang was intended to test Japanese intentions as a prelude to the eventual recapture of Singapore and the rest of Malaya.
Operation Zipper
The Japanese garrison in Penang surrendered on 2 September and the Royal Marines recaptured George Town the following day.
Operation Zipper
The Reconquest of Constantinople was the recapture of the city of Constantinople in 1261 AD from the Latin Empire by Nicaean forces led by the general Alexios Strategopoulos.
Reconquest of Constantinople
The recapture of Constantinople ended more than a half century of occupation by the Latin Empire over the Byzantine capital.
Reconquest of Constantinople

1 / 2

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

the capture family

capture

recapture — used about once every 4,196 pages · #9,110 · point at the bar for the others

← Vocabulary