Reclaims

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Takes back ownership or control of something previously lost or given away ; recovers useful substances or materials from waste products or discarded items
2. Regains possession of property, land, or rights after losing them ; salvages valuable components or resources from rubbish or refuse
3. Retrieves control or ownership of an area, object, or rights ; obtains and reprocesses usable materials from trash or byproducts

Etymology: "Reclaims" is the third-person singular form of "reclaim", so the story belongs to the verb itself. The root is Latin "reclāmāre", meaning "to cry out against" or "to protest", built from "re-" (back, again) and "clamāre" (to shout). That sense of loudly objecting survives in the base word "claim", which carries the idea of calling out a right. The English verb came into Middle English as "reclaymen" or "recleymen" by way of Anglo-Norman "reclamer" and Middle French "reclamer", so it passed through French before reaching English. The verb's earliest senses leaned toward protest and legal objection, and the sense of getting something back grew from there. Someone who "reclaims" land or rights is effectively calling out for them to be returned. The sense of salvaging usable material from waste comes from the same idea: recovering value that had been cast aside. The shouting Latin root has become, over centuries, a quiet word about getting back what was lost.

Synonyms: recovers, retrieves, restores, regains, renews

Antonyms: loses, forfeits, surrenders