Reconnect

How to spell reconnect

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce reconnect

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reconnect mean?

1. verbTo join or link something together again after a break or interruption.

Reconnect in a sentence

• The engineer arrived to reconnect the broken water supply.

• After the storm, crews worked through the night to reconnect the power lines.

Where does reconnect come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a modern English compound built from the prefix re-, meaning 'again', attached to the verb connect. Connect itself comes from the Latin conectere, formed from the prefix con-, meaning 'together', and the verb nectere, which literally meant 'to bind, tie, or knot'. So at its root the word describes binding things back together once more. The same nectere lies behind the words 'annex' and 'nexus', which all share the idea of things being tied or joined. The re- prefix was a productive Latin and later English device for marking repetition, and adding it to connect simply means joining again something that had been linked before. The spelling trap is the double pair of consonants: two c's after the re-, then the doubled n in the middle, which writers often reduce by mistake.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• con- (together)
• nect (from Latin nectere: to bind or tie)