refund

From Middle English refunden, refounden, from Old French refondre, refonder, refunder (“to restore; pay back”), from Latin refundere; prefix re- (“re-”) + fundere (“to pour”): compare French refondre, refonder. See fuse (“to melt”), and compare refound (“to cast again”), and refuse.

• (verb) enPR: rĭfŭnd', IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈfʌnd/

• Audio (US):

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• (noun) enPR: rē'fŭnd', IPA^(key): /ˈɹiːfʌnd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌnd

refund (third-person singular simple present refunds, present participle refunding, simple past and past participle refunded)

1. (transitive) To return (money) to (someone); to reimburse.

   If you find this computer for sale anywhere at a lower price, we’ll refund you the difference.

   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:

     A Governor, that had Pillag'd the People, was […] sentenc'd to Refund what he had Wrongfully Taken.

   • 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Down the Oise: To Moy”, in An Inland Voyage, London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co., […], →OCLC, page 141:

     Finding us easy in our ways, he […] told me a cock-and-bull story with the moral of another five francs for the narrator. The thing was palpably absurd; but I paid up, and at once dropped all friendliness of manner, and kept him in his place as an inferior with freezing British dignity. He saw in a moment that he had gone too far, and killed a willing horse; his face fell; I am sure he would have refunded if he could only have thought of a decent pretext.

     An intransitive use of the word.

2. (transitive, colloquial) To obtain a refund.

   this game sucks, imma refund it.

3. (transitive, obsolete) To supply (someone) again with funds.

   to refund a railroad loan

4. (transitive, obsolete, rare) To pour back (something).
   • 1691, John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation. […], London: […] Samuel Smith, […], →OCLC:

     Were the humours of the eye tinctured with any colour, they would refund that colour upon the object.

   • 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:

     When our mutual trance was a little over, and the young fellow had withdrawn that delicious stretcher, with which he had most plentifully drowned all thoughts of revenge in the sense of actual pleasure, the widen'd wounded passage refunded a stream of pearly liquids, which flowed down my thighs, mixed with streaks of blood

refund (plural refunds)

1. An amount of money returned.

   If the camera is faulty, you can return it to the store where you bought it for a full refund.

• Dufner, funder