Other forms: refunds, refunded, refunding
A refund is your money handed back after you return what you bought, or after you paid for something you did not get. Boots that leaked, a cancelled flight, a tax bill overpaid by four hundred pounds.
It is a noun and a verb, and the stress moves between them: a REE-fund is the money, to re-FUND is to give it back. Ask for a refund, get a full refund, claim a tax refund; a shop's refund policy is the notice beside the till telling you how many days you have. Keep the two verbs apart — you return the item and the shop refunds the money, so nobody returns your money. Reimburse is the formal cousin, used when someone pays you back what you spent for them.
1nounrefundMoney paid back to you.
“The airline promised a full refund within ten days.”
2verbpayTo pay money back to someone.
“They refunded the deposit without arguing.”
refund is a payment.
Refund is Latin poured backwards: re-, back, plus fundere, to pour, giving refundere, which came through Old French refunder, to restore or pay back, and Middle English refunden. That same fundere lies under fuse, to melt. Money you get back has been poured back into your hands.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰewd-
Latin
refundere
Old French
refondre
Middle English
refunden
English, today
refund
Built from
From Middle English refunden, refounden, from Old French refondre, refonder, refunder (“to restore; pay back”), from Latin refundere; prefix re- (“re-”) + fundere (“to pour”): compare French refondre, refonder. See fuse (“to melt”), and compare refound (“to cast again”), and refuse.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA