Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To use one's memory to become aware of (something); recall to mind.
  • intransitive verb To remember something; have a recollection.
  • idiom (recollect (oneself)) To become aware of one's immediate situation or purpose after a distraction.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To collect or gather again; collect what has been scattered: often written distinctively re-collect: as, to re-collect routed troops.
  • To summon back, as scattered ideas; reduce to order; gather together.
  • To recover (one's self); collect (one's self): used reflexively in the past participle.
  • To gather; collect.
  • To come together again; reunite.
  • To recover or recall knowledge of; bring back to the mind or memory; remember.
  • Synonyms To call up, call to mind. See remember and memory.
  • noun Same as Recollet.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To recover or recall the knowledge of; to bring back to the mind or memory; to remember.
  • transitive verb Reflexively, to compose one's self; to recover self-command; ; -- sometimes, formerly, in the perfect participle.
  • noun (Eccl.) A friar of the Strict Observance, -- an order of Franciscans.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To recall; to collect one's thoughts again, especially about past events.
  • verb transitive, obsolete To collect (things) together again.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb recall knowledge from memory; have a recollection

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Medieval Latin recolligere, recollēct-, from Latin, to gather up : re-, re- + colligere, to collect; see collect.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Medieval Latin recollectus ("remembered, composed"), from Latin recolligo ("gather again, recover")

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

re- +‎ collect

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Examples

  • She return'd on the 24th, the next day you may recollect is sacred to our Leather Saint, and is besides her birthday.

    Letter 245 2009

  • Carruthers observes: The ability to recollect is natural to everyone, but the procedure itself is formed by habitus, training and practice ....

    Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

  • What the novel offers is an opportunity to "remember," to recollect from a perspective of relative safety a "moment in time," even if the memories are full of doom and foreboding.

    Social Fiction 2007

  • And throughout the book, what Christopher does and does not recollect, is of great concern for him.

    When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro: Questions 2000

  • The shape of it, as you will recollect, is that of an irregular parallelogram, with a long projection running, out from the north-east corner.

    The Position of Cyprus in the Empire 1904

  • The first I recollect is that one spoken to Abraham, 'Fear not – I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.'

    Queechy 1854

  • It was not a case of recollecting; for we recollect, that is, recover to memory, what is not in our mind. '

    Life Of Johnson Boswell, James, 1740-1795 1887

  • "And I am morally certain I sha'n't recollect a word of it if I don't carry away some specimens to refresh my memory, and in that case he would never give me another."

    Queechy 1854

  • We no sooner kneel than we "recollect" something that should have been done, or something which had better be seen to at once.

    The Kneeling Christian Unknown Christian 1971

  • "Doubtless, your excellency will pardon a young man for speaking with diffidence on a subject, to recollect which is to cause pain."

    A Friend of Caesar A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. William Stearns Davis 1903

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