Recollection

How to spell recollection

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce recollection

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does recollection mean?

1. nounThe act of remembering something, or a particular memory that is recalled.

Recollection in a sentence

• My recollection of that meeting is hazy after so many years.

• To the best of my recollection, the invoice was paid in March.

Where does recollection come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb colligere, meaning 'to gather together', which itself joins com- 'together' with legere 'to gather or pick up'. From colligere came the noun collectio, and the prefix re- 'again' was added to express the idea of gathering something back, in this case gathering memories back into the mind. English took the form through Latin and the related French collection in the late Middle Ages, and 'recollection' as the act of remembering settled into the language in the 1600s. The same legere root, which also meant 'to read', survives in everyday relatives such as 'collect', 'lecture', and 'select'. Because the word literally pictures a re-collecting of thoughts, the spelling trap is the doubled c and the single l: it is re-collection, not re-colection or recolllection.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• col- (together, from com-)
• lect (gather, from legere)
• -ion (noun suffix)