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regain

UK/ɹiːˈɡeɪn/US/ɹiːˈɡeɪn/
verbB2Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,166 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: regained, regaining, regains

To regain something is to get back what you had lost. It was yours, it went, and now it is yours again.

It suits abstractions above all: regain consciousness, regain control, regain your balance, regain the lead. Those are close to fixed phrases, and regaining consciousness is the standard medical wording. It is more formal than get back and more precise, since regaining implies returning to a former state rather than simply acquiring. There is no noun regain, so recovery does that work instead.

Definitions of regain

  1. 1verbregainTo get back something previously lost.B2

    “He never fully regained the use of his hand.”

Where it comes from

  1. Middle French

    regaigner

  2. English, today

    regain

From Middle French regaigner (French regagner). by surface analysis, re- + gain.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

regain in the wild

  • The dieter then seeks to lose the regained weight, and the cycle begins again.

    Weight cycling

  • Willford died on March 10, 1937, shortly after his failed bid to regain his seat.

    Albert C. Willford

  • The Moldavian army came out victorious, but Stephen ceased attempting to regain Chilia.

    Battle of Cătlăbuga

  • Hyder Ali attempted to regain the territories of Malabar and Coorg from the Marathas and was successful in doing so.

    Battle of Saunshi

  • Labour did however regain control of Aberdeen, which they had lost in 1968.

    1969 Scottish local elections

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.