Regroup

How to spell regroup

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce regroup

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does regroup mean?

1. verbTo reorganise, gather together again, or take a moment to recover before continuing.

Regroup in a sentence

• After the failed launch, the team paused to regroup and rethink the plan.

• The commander ordered the troops to regroup behind the ridge.

Where does regroup come from?

Language of origin: French

This is a compound built inside English from the prefix re-, meaning 'again' or 'back', and the verb 'group'. The noun 'group' arrived in English in the late 1600s from the French groupe, which Italian had supplied as gruppo, originally a term used by painters for a cluster of figures arranged together in a picture. The Italian word probably traces back to a Germanic root meaning a knot or a lump, the idea being a mass of things bunched up. Once 'group' settled into English as both noun and verb, the prefix re- attached naturally to give 'regroup', which appears in military use during the twentieth century for reorganising scattered forces and then spread to everyday talk of pausing to gather oneself again. Because the spelling is simply re- bolted onto group, the only trap is remembering it is one closed word with no hyphen.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• group (a cluster or body, from French groupe)