Other forms: renewed, renewing, renews
To renew is to make something valid again, or to begin it again. Renew a passport, renew the lease, renewed interest.
The administrative sense is much the commoner: renew a licence, renew a subscription, renew a library book. Auto-renewal is the arrangement that quietly continues a subscription forever, and it is now regulated for exactly that reason. Renewed means starting again with fresh energy: renewed interest, renewed fighting. Note renewal, and renewable, which of energy means from a source that does not run out.
1verbrenewTo make something valid again.
“I need to renew my passport before our trip to America.”
2verbbeginTo begin something again with fresh energy.
“After the holiday, she returned to work with renewed energy.”
renew is a making new again.
The word is re- plus new, an English formation on a Latin pattern. Old English had niwian, to make new, and the re- was added when the language had absorbed enough Latin to want it.
Proto-Indo-European
*new- (new)
Old English
nīewian — to restore; renovate; renew
Middle English
renewen
English, today
renew
Built from
From Middle English renewen, an alteration (possibly on analogy with Latin renovāre) of earlier anewen (“to renew”), from Old English nīewian (“to restore; renovate; renew”), equivalent to re + new. Cognate with Old High German giniuwōn (“to renew”), Middle High German geniuwen (“to renew”), Old Norse nýja (“to renew”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA