Library / English Dictionary

RECOMMENCE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Begin again

Example:

we recommenced his reading after a short nap

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "recommence" is one way to...):

begin; commence; get; get down; set about; set out; start; start out (take the first step or steps in carrying out an action)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s to INFINITIVE
Somebody ----s VERB-ing

Derivation:

recommencement (beginning again)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cause to start anew

Example:

The enemy recommenced hostilities after a few days of quiet

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "recommence" is one way to...):

begin; commence; lead off; start (set in motion, cause to start)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

recommencement (beginning again)

Credits

 Context examples: 

At last the tapping recommenced, and, to our indescribable joy and gratitude, died slowly away again until it ceased to be heard.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as imperturbably and with as much acumen as ever.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Day after day, week after week, passed away on my return to Geneva; and I could not collect the courage to recommence my work.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons recommenced, and were continued till five o'clock.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It was noon when I awoke, and allured by the warmth of the sun, which shone brightly on the white ground, I determined to recommence my travels; and, depositing the remains of the peasant’s breakfast in a wallet I found, I proceeded across the fields for several hours, until at sunset I arrived at a village.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

"Jane," he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly strayed down in the direction of the sunk fence and the horse-chestnut, "Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Such society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come back—higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Jane! recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror—for this still voice was the pant of a lion rising—Jane, do you mean to go one way in the world, and to let me go another?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He sat down; for half-an-hour we never spoke; neither he to me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced—Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman which sails on the 20th of June.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)