repair

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈpɛə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈpɛɚ/, /ɹəˈpɛɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛə(r)

Coined between 1300 and 1350 from Middle English repairen, from Middle French reparer, from Latin reparō (“renew, repair”).

repair (third-person singular simple present repairs, present participle repairing, simple past and past participle repaired)

1. To restore to good working order, fix, or improve damaged condition; to mend; to remedy.

   to repair a house, a road, a shoe, or a ship

   to repair a shattered fortune

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     secret refreshings that repair his strength

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Wordsworth

     Do thou, as thou art wont, repair / My heart with gladness.

2. To make amends for, as for an injury, by an equivalent; to indemnify for.

   to repair a loss or damage

   • (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare

     I'll repair the misery thou dost bear.

• See also Thesaurus:repair

• repairable / reparable, repairer

repair (countable and uncountable, plural repairs)

1. The act of repairing something.

   I took the car to the workshop for repair.

   • 2014 June 14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891:

     One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. […] But out of sight is out of mind. And that […] means that many old sewers have been neglected and are in dire need of repair.

2. The result of repairing something.

   If you look closely you can see the repair in the paintwork.

3. The condition of something, in respect of need for repair.

   The car was overall in poor repair before the accident. But after the workshop had it for three weeks it was returned in excellent repair. But the other vehicle was beyond repair.

• disrepair

• reparation
• reparative

From Middle English repairen (“to return”), borrowed from Old French repairier, from Late Latin repatriare (“to return to one's country”), from re- + patria (“homeland”). Cognate to repatriate.

repair (plural repairs)

1. The act of repairing or resorting to a place.

   our annual repair to the mountains

   • (Can we date this quote?) Clarendon

     The king sent a proclamation for their repair to their houses.

2. A place to which one goes frequently or habitually; a haunt.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Dryden

     There the fierce winds his tender force assail / And beat him downward to his first repair.

repair (third-person singular simple present repairs, present participle repairing, simple past and past participle repaired)

1. To transfer oneself to another place.

   to repair to sanctuary for safety

   • (Can we date this quote?) Alexander Pope

     Go, mount the winds, and to the shades repair.

   • 1850, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

     I heard the visitors repair to their chambers.

   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 731476803:

     That finished, I repaired to my room, one flight up, and, after a thorough wash, seated myself, pipe in mouth, at the little window that opened on the Rue Garde. I had nothing more exciting on hand than to wait for word from Von Lindowe. I sincerely hoped that it would not be long, for it is not my forte to sit twiddling my thumbs.

• repatriate

From re- +‎ pair.

repair (third-person singular simple present repairs, present participle repairing, simple past and past participle repaired)

1. to pair again

• repair in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• repair in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• “repair” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “repair” in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, →ISBN.

• Rapier, pairer, rapier