Recess

How to spell recess

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce recess

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does recess mean?

1. nounA period during which normal activity, such as school lessons or a court or parliamentary session, is suspended.
2. nounA small space or hollow set back from the main line of a wall or room.

Recess in a sentence

• The court adjourned for a short recess before the verdict.

• She fitted shelves into the recess beside the chimney.

• Parliament returns from its summer recess in early September.

• The statue stood in a shallow recess above the doorway.

Where does recess come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Recess comes from the Latin recessus, meaning 'a going back' or 'a retreat', which is the past participle of recedere, built from re- 'back' and cedere 'to go or withdraw'. The same cedere root sits behind a whole family of English words, including recede, proceed, concede and access, so the idea of movement or withdrawal runs through all of them. English took recess on in the sixteenth century, first for the act of withdrawing or a hidden inner place, and later for a sheltered hollow set back from a wall. From the sense of withdrawing came the meaning of a temporary suspension of business, which is how courts, parliaments and schools came to have a recess. Because the spelling preserves the doubled 's' of the Latin cessus, writers sometimes hesitate over whether it is one 's' or two, and the unstressed first syllable adds to the doubt.

How the word is built

• re- (back)
• cess (from cedere/cessus: to go, withdraw)