/rɪˈkuːp/
[verb] To get back money, time, or something else that you have lost or spent. It can also mean to pay someone back for a loss they have suffered.
At its heart, 'recoup' is about cutting — it comes from the same root as 'coup' and once meant slicing off a legal deduction.
The story of 'recoup' begins with a blade. Its earliest ancestor is the Old French verb 'recouper', meaning 'to cut back' or 'to cut again', which was built from the prefix 're-' (again, back) and 'couper' (to cut). That verb 'couper' descended from the Old French noun 'coup', meaning 'a blow' or 'a cut', which itself came from Medieval Latin 'colpus', a worn-down form of Classical Latin 'colaphus', meaning 'a blow with the fist'. Latin had borrowed this from the Greek 'kolaphos', which also meant a punch or a slap. So the very core of 'recoup' is the physical act of striking something.
In the legal world of medieval France, 'recouper' took on a precise technical meaning. When a defendant in a lawsuit wanted to reduce the amount they owed by claiming a counter-loss of their own, the courts described this as 'cutting back' the claim — literally trimming it down, as if with a blade. This legal sense of making a deduction or set-off was the first specialised use of the word, and it gave 'recoup' a flavour of careful, calculated reduction rather than simple recovery.
English borrowed the word in the 17th century, initially keeping its legal flavour. Early English uses of 'recoup' described the process of withholding part of a payment as compensation for a loss — the idea of a judge or creditor being permitted to 'cut back' what was owed. The chain of transmission ran: Greek 'kolaphos' → Latin 'colaphus' → Medieval Latin 'colpus' → Old French 'coup' → Old French 'couper' → Old French 'recouper' → English 'recoup'. By the time English writers were using it regularly, around the mid-1600s, the courtroom context was firmly established.
Over time, the word expanded beyond its legal origins. Ordinary speakers began using 'recoup' more broadly to mean simply getting something back — especially money lost through bad luck, bad business, or misfortune. By the 19th century, 'to recoup one's losses' had become a common phrase used by merchants, gamblers, and investors alike. The sharp, surgical image of cutting away debt had softened into the warmer, more hopeful idea of recovery and restoration.
This shift from 'cutting' to 'recovering' is a perfect example of how verbs associated with precise, technical actions can gradually blur into everyday emotional language. Today, people recoup their losses after a failed investment, recoup their energy after a long week, or recoup the time they spent on an unsuccessful project. The cutting blade is long forgotten, yet the word still carries a subtle undertone of balancing accounts — of making yourself whole again after something has been taken away.