verb
reclaim
Lead or force someone to abandon wrongful conduct and adopt a morally right way of life
Where it comes from
Middle English reclaim came through Anglo-French reclamer from Latin reclamare, to cry out against or call back, built from re- and clamare, to cry out.
How the meaning developed
In medieval English one could reclaim a trained hawk by calling it back to the glove. Calling back encouraged senses of taming and reforming; those later spread to recovering possession, making land usable, and salvaging waste.
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Sources
Definitions adapted from Open English WordNet where applicable. License and attribution. Word-history text comes from Lexifour’s sourced social research; pages are assembled automatically, not individually fact-checked on every update.
Updated 2026-09-25. Report a correction.