Recovers

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Returns to a normal state of health or strength after illness or difficulty ; takes back something that was lost or stolen
2. Comes back to good health or recovers emotionally after a hardship ; obtains possession of an item again after it has been misplaced or taken
3. Restores strength or well-being following injury or stress ; finds and reclaims something previously lost or inaccessible

Etymology: The verb "recovers" is simply the third-person singular form of "recover", so the story belongs to the base word. Its most surprising feature is that English got it twice from the same Latin source. "Recover" came into Middle English through Anglo-Norman and Old French "recovrer", which in turn descended from Latin "recuperare". That same Latin verb also gave English "recuperate", a doublet, so the two words share an ancestor but arrived by different routes and took on different shades of meaning. The Latin verb "recuperare" was itself a variant of "reciperare", meaning to get back or take back what was lost, and this sense of reclaiming is the thread running through both modern meanings. The English word was built from "re-", meaning back or again, plus "cover", so the image is of something uncovered or taken back into one's possession. The health sense ("to recover from an illness") and the sense of reclaiming a stolen item both follow naturally from that original idea of getting something back.

Synonyms: regains, retrieves, restores, recoups, heals

Antonyms: loses, decreases, deteriorates, forfeits, declines