Recurrence

How to spell recurrence

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce recurrence

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does recurrence mean?

1. nounThe act of something happening again, or its return after an interval.

Recurrence in a sentence

• The council watched the site closely for any recurrence of flooding.

• Strict backups reduce the recurrence of data loss after a crash.

Where does recurrence come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb recurrere, meaning 'to run back' or 'to return', which combined the prefix re- 'again, back' with currere 'to run'. The same currere root is the engine inside a whole family of English words including 'current', 'occur', 'cursor' and 'curriculum', all carrying a sense of running or flowing. By the seventeenth century English had formed 'recurrence' from the related adjective 'recurrent' to name the act of something running back, that is, happening again. The idea of a thing 'running back' into the present is a useful image for the spelling: the doubled r appears because the prefix re- meets the cur root, and the ending settles on -ence rather than -ance, the trap that catches most adults. Today it ranges across plain repetition, medicine (a returning illness) and mathematics (a recurring pattern).

How the word is built

• re- (again, back)
• cur (run, from Latin currere)
• -ence (noun-forming suffix)