Reimburse

How to spell reimburse

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce reimburse

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reimburse mean?

1. verbTo pay back money that someone has spent on your behalf or for an approved purpose.

Reimburse in a sentence

• The company will reimburse all reasonable travel costs.

• Keep the receipts so your employer can reimburse you in full.

Where does reimburse come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Reimburse comes from the idea of putting money back into someone's purse. It was formed in the early 1600s by adding the prefix re-, meaning 'back' or 'again', to the older verb 'imburse', which meant 'to put into a purse' and itself came from the Latin bursa, meaning 'purse' or 'leather bag'. That same Latin bursa is the root of the word 'bursar', the officer who handles a college's money, and even of 'purse' itself, since the b softened to a p on its journey through Old French. The literal sense, then, is to return funds to a person's pocket after they have spent their own. The double trap in the spelling is the silent middle: the 'ei' that sounds like a simple 'ee' or 'i', and the single 'm' before 'burse' that writers often want to double. Knowing the hidden 'purse' (the 'burse' part) helps fix the ending in memory.

How the word is built

• re- (back)
• im- (in)
• burse (purse/bag, from Latin bursa)
• -e