Rescue

How to spell rescue

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce rescue

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rescue mean?

1. verbTo save someone or something from danger, harm, or a difficult situation.
2. nounAn act of saving someone or something from danger or difficulty.

Rescue in a sentence

• verb

  The lifeboat crew worked through the night to rescue the stranded sailors.

• noun

  The mountain rescue took six hours in heavy snow.

• verb

  Firefighters had to rescue the cat from the top of the tall pine.

• noun

  Volunteers organised a daring rescue of the trapped miners.

Where does rescue come from?

Language of origin: French

Rescue came into English in the 1300s from the Old French verb rescourre, which meant to free, to recover, or to deliver someone from danger. That French verb was built from re-, an intensifying prefix, and escourre, meaning 'to shake off' or 'to drive away', which in turn descended from the Latin excutere, literally 'to shake out', from ex- 'out' and quatere 'to shake'. So the original image behind the word is forcefully shaking a captive loose from whatever holds them. The Middle English spelling drifted through forms like rescowe before settling on the modern rescue, with the unexpected -cue ending that catches some writers out. The same quatere root, meaning 'to shake', also lies behind words such as 'concussion' and 'percussion'.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• -scue (from Old French escourre 'to shake off', from Latin excutere 'to shake out')