Refill

How to spell refill

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce refill

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does refill mean?

1. verbTo fill something again after it has been emptied or used up.
2. nounA fresh quantity or replacement supply used to fill something again.

Refill in a sentence

• verb

  The waiter offered to refill her water glass during dinner.

• noun

  The cafe gives a free refill on any large coffee.

• verb

  Remember to refill the printer tray before the meeting.

• noun

  She bought a refill for her fountain pen at the stationery shop.

Where does refill come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a transparent English compound built from the prefix re-, taken from Latin and meaning 'again' or 'back', joined to the native verb 'fill', which descends from Old English 'fyllan', meaning to make full. The base 'fill' is itself related to the adjective 'full' and has Germanic roots shared across languages like Dutch 'vullen' and German 'fullen'. The prefix re- has been one of the most productive word-building elements in English since the Middle Ages, attaching freely to verbs to mean doing the action over again. As a verb 'refill' means simply to fill once more, and from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries it also settled into use as a noun for a fresh quantity of something, such as a drink topped up or a replacement insert for a pen. Because the spelling is just re- plus fill, the only point to watch is keeping the double 'l' that belongs to 'fill'.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• fill (to make full)