RECOMPENSE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does recompense mean? 

• RECOMPENSE (noun)
  The noun RECOMPENSE has 2 senses:

1. payment or reward (as for service rendered)

2. the act of compensating for service or loss or injury

  Familiarity information: RECOMPENSE used as a noun is rare.

• RECOMPENSE (verb)
  The verb RECOMPENSE has 2 senses:

1. make amends for; pay compensation for

2. make payment to; compensate

  Familiarity information: RECOMPENSE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RECOMPENSE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Payment or reward (as for service rendered)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Hypernyms ("recompense" is a kind of...):

payment (a sum of money paid or a claim discharged)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "recompense"):

adjustment; allowance (an amount added or deducted on the basis of qualifying circumstances)

compensation (something (such as money) given or received as payment or reparation (as for a service or loss or injury))

Derivation:

recompense (make payment to; compensate)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The act of compensating for service or loss or injury

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

compensation; recompense

Hypernyms ("recompense" is a kind of...):

correction; rectification (the act of offering an improvement to replace a mistake; setting right)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "recompense"):

indemnification (an act of compensation for actual loss or damage or for trouble and annoyance)

Derivation:

recompense (make payment to; compensate)

• RECOMPENSE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they recompense    ... he / she / it recompenses   
Past simple: recompensed   
Past participle: recompensed   
-ing form: recompensing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make amends for; pay compensation for

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Synonyms:

compensate; indemnify; recompense; repair

Context example:

She was compensated for the loss of her arm in the accident

Hypernyms (to "recompense" is one way to...):

pay (give money, usually in exchange for goods or services)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "recompense"):

give (deliver in exchange or recompense)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something to somebody

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make payment to; compensate

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Synonyms:

compensate; recompense; remunerate

Context example:

My efforts were not remunerated

Hypernyms (to "recompense" is one way to...):

pay (give money, usually in exchange for goods or services)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "recompense"):

recoup; reimburse (reimburse or compensate (someone), as for a loss)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

recompense (the act of compensating for service or loss or injury)

recompense (payment or reward (as for service rendered))

 Context examples 

And he said all this—I knew, as I saw his face in the moonlight—that I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by using his power.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It is to recompense you for any inconvenience that we are paying to you, a young and unknown man, a fee which would buy an opinion from the very heads of your profession.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I had saved a human being from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The dad raised their wages all round to recompense them for the annoyance.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I made bold to tell her majesty, that I owed no other obligation to my late master, than his not dashing out the brains of a poor harmless creature, found by chance in his fields: which obligation was amply recompensed, by the gain he had made in showing me through half the kingdom, and the price he had now sold me for.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a gingerbread-nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! the verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;' says he, 'I wish to be a little angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

For my part, I could have gone through a good deal (though I was much less brave than Traddles, and nothing like so old) to have won such a recompense.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Yet it is in your power to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil which it only remains for you to make so great, that not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

All crimes against the state, are punished here with the utmost severity; but, if the person accused makes his innocence plainly to appear upon his trial, the accuser is immediately put to an ignominious death; and out of his goods or lands the innocent person is quadruply recompensed for the loss of his time, for the danger he underwent, for the hardship of his imprisonment, and for all the charges he has been at in making his defence; or, if that fund be deficient, it is largely supplied by the crown.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It was some small satisfaction to me to observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered, mulberry-coloured great-coat perched up, in company with an umbrella like a small tent, on the edge of the back seat on the roof, while Agnes was, of course, inside; but what I underwent in my efforts to be friendly with him, while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little recompense.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)