revenant

UK/ˈɹɛvənənt/US/ˈɹɛvənənt/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: revenants

A revenant is somebody who returns, especially from the dead. The revenant at the door.

It is quieter than a ghost, since a revenant comes back in a body. The word is also used of anybody who reappears long after everybody had written them off.

Definitions of revenant

1nounrevenantSomebody who returns, especially from the dead.C2
“The village treated him as a revenant and would not speak to him.”

revenant is a person.

Where it comes from

French revenant, the present participle of revenir, to return; the same root gives revenue, money that comes back in.

Proto-Indo-European
*gʷem-
French
revenant
English, today
revenant

Built from

revenir · French — to return

19th century. From French revenant, the present participle of revenir (“to return”). Compare revenue.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

revenant in the wild

A revenant is a corpse that has returned from the grave to terrorize the living in European folklore.
Revenant (disambiguation)
In folklore, a revenant is a spirit or animated corpse that is believed to have been resurrected to haunt the living.
Revenant
The word revenant is derived from the Old French word revenant 'returning' (see also the related French verb revenir 'to come back').
Revenant
The word "revenant" means someone who has risen from the grave to terrorize the living.
The Revenant (novel)

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 revenir family

revenue

revenant — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

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