Refelling

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of filling something once more after it has been emptied
2. Replacing the contents of a container or space with new material after use
3. The process of supplying or replenishing a container to restore its previous level

Etymology: In Latin, "refellere" meant to drive back or to disprove, and it was formed from re- and "fallere," meaning "to deceive." English took it up as the verb "refel," which meant to refute an argument or show a claim to be false. "Refelling" is the form of that older verb, so it describes rebutting someone rather than restocking anything. The sense of putting new material into an emptied space comes from a separate source. It is built from re- and "fill," which goes back to the Old English "fyllan," meaning to make full. The two words look alike only because they share the prefix re-, which in each case means "again" or "back," so the modern meaning owes nothing to the Latin verb.