Refunded

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of returning money or credit to a purchaser due to a product return, service cancellation, or overpayment
2. The process where a financial institution restores funds to a customer's account after a transaction is reversed
3. The procedure of reimbursing an individual for an expense incurred, often following a claim or request for such compensation

Etymology: "Refunded" is the past tense and past participle of "refund," and the verb's oldest sense was physical: to pour back, the way molten metal is poured back into a vessel. It comes from Middle English "refunden" and "refounden," borrowed from Old French "refondre" and "refonder," meaning to restore or pay back, which descend from Latin "refundere," a compound of "re-" (again, back) and "fundere" (to pour). The Latin root also gave English "fuse," in the sense of melting metal, and "refound," meaning to cast again. The notion of pouring something back gradually shifted from metal and liquid toward money and obligation, so that to refund came to mean giving back what was owed or paid. Despite looking like it belongs with "fund," it has no connection to that word. The similarity is pure coincidence of spelling, and a reader who assumes otherwise will be misled about where the money-related sense comes from.

Synonyms: reimbursed, repaid, compensated, returned, recompensed