Recreational

How to spell recreational

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce recreational

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does recreational mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to activity done for enjoyment or relaxation rather than for work or necessity.

Recreational in a sentence

• The park has several recreational facilities, including tennis courts and a swimming pool.

• He plays football at a recreational level rather than competitively.

Where does recreational come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb creare, meaning 'to bring forth' or 'to produce'. With the prefix re-, meaning 'again', the Latin recreare meant 'to restore' or 'to refresh', the idea being that rest and play create a person anew. From this came the Latin noun recreatio, 'a recovery or refreshment', which passed into English through Old French as 'recreation' in the late 1300s, originally describing the refreshment of body and mind after work. The adjective 'recreational' was formed much later, in the nineteenth century, by adding the suffix -al to 'recreation' to mean 'relating to leisure or amusement'. The same creare root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'create' and 'creature', and remembering that family helps explain why the middle of the word is spelled creat, not creit; the spelling trap lies in the unstressed second syllable and the long -ational ending.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• creat (from creare: to create, produce)
• -ion (noun suffix)
• -al (adjective suffix)