Recurring

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ɹɪˈkɜːɹɪŋ/

Definitions

1. An occurrence that takes place again and again over specific intervals
2. An event that reappears at regular or irregular times creating a cycle
3. Happening or appearing again and again during intervals of time without permanent conclusion

Etymology: The verb "recur" was borrowed directly from Latin "recurrere", meaning "to hurry or run back; to return, revert." It is built from "re-", meaning "back," and "currere", meaning "to run," a root shared with words like "current" and "courier." So the original image is literal: something running back to where it started. The sense of repeating at intervals grew out of that idea of returning. A fever that comes back every few days, or a theme that keeps coming around in a piece of music, is something that runs back again rather than something that simply happens once. The adjective used here takes that meaning and applies it to events that happen repeatedly over set periods. Related forms appear across the Romance languages, including French "recourir," Spanish "recorrer," and Italian "ricorrer," which share the same Latin ancestry. In French, the verb "recourir" has a sense of having recourse to someone or something, which is a different branch of the same running-back idea.

Synonyms: repeating, recurrent, habitual, periodic, cyclical

Antonyms: single, isolated, uncommon, occasional, rare