Other forms: reclaimed, reclaiming, reclaims
To reclaim is to get something back, or to make land usable. Reclaim your baggage, reclaim the tax, reclaimed land.
Baggage reclaim is the British airport sign for where you collect your bags. Reclaiming tax or a fee means getting money back that was wrongly paid. Reclaimed land is land recovered from the sea or from waste, and a large share of the Netherlands is exactly that. Reclaimed timber is salvaged and reused. Note that a group reclaiming a word takes back an insult and uses it of itself.
1verbverbTo get something back.
“You can reclaim the cost of your train ticket from the company.”
2verbreclaimTo make land usable again.
“The old coal mine was reclaimed and turned into a nature park.”
reclaim is a recovering.
Anglo-Norman reclamer comes from Latin reclamare, to cry out against — re- plus clamare, to shout. Claim, exclaim and clamour come from the same shouting.
Proto-Indo-European
*kelh₁-
Latin
reclamo
Middle French
reclamer
Anglo-Norman
reclamer
Middle English
reclaymen
English, today
reclaim
From Middle English reclaymen, recleymen, reclamen, from Anglo-Norman reclamer (noun reclaim and Middle French reclamer (noun reclaim), from Latin reclamo. Equivalent to re + claim.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA