Reclaim
Verb
Pronunciation and accent: rIkleIm
Etymology: from Old French reclamer (= to call back, appeal to), and this one from Latin reclamare (= to cry out against), which is analysable into re- (= back, again) and clamare (= to call, proclaim, declare aloud).
Preterite tense: reclaimed
Preterite participle: reclaimed
present participle: reclaiming.
Transitively:
First definition: literally: to call back. (It is an obsolete acceptation, except when referred to a hawk)
“Let her go,” he said; “she is but a hawk that goes down the wind; I would not bestow even a whistle to reclaim her.”
Walter Scott (Kenilworth)
Second definition: to claim the restoration of (a person or thing); to demand back
It is maybe an acceptation developed independently of the preceding one; this is, an English synthesis from re- and the verb claim.
It may be translated by reclamar, in Spanish; reclamare, in Italian; réclamer, in French.
Some of the babies are […] well supplied with linen and necessaries. […] With such the most affecting letters are left, praying the nurses to take more than usual care of a child which will surely be one day reclaimed; a mark or ornament is generally fastened to the infant, in order that it may be identified hereafter, if claimed.
Richard Ford (A Hand-book…)
I reprint in this volume, […] a dozen minor novels that have been published in the periodical press […], in order to render them accessible to readers who desire to have them in the complete series issued by my publishers. For aid in reclaiming some of the narratives I express my thanks to the proprietors and editors of the newspapers and magazines in whose pages they first appeared.
Thomas Hardy (A changed man, and other tales)
[…] he reclaimed all the castles belonging to the crown.
Charles Dickens (A child’s history)
Extensively from the first acceptation:
Third definition: to cause (a person or other animal) to revert from a disapprovable habit
Synonyms: to revert, restore
The design and object of this Institution is to reclaim the youthful criminal by […] kind […] treatment.
Charles Dickens (American Notes for General Circulation)
***With the preposition from, followed by a noun, designative of the wrong action:
[…] she is a great artist at her needle, it is incredible what sums she expends in embroidery; for, besides what is appropriated to her personal use, as mantuas, petticoats, stomachers, handkerchiefs, purses, pincushions, and working-aprons, she keeps four [… persons] continually employed in making divers pieces of superfluous furniture, as quilts, toilets, hangings for closets, beds, window-curtains, […]; nor have I any hopes of ever reclaiming her from this extravagance, while she obstinately persists in thinking it a notable piece of good housewifery.
Robert Lynam (The British Essayists)
[…] it is said that above ten thousand drunkards have been reclaimed from intoxication.
Frederick Marryat (Diary in America)
***With the preposition to, followed by a noun, designative of the previous state or condition:
Paul Gordon had of late become more remiss in his attentions to Mistress Haines, who did not fail to upbraid him with his faithlessness in order to reclaim him to his allegiance.
Richard Smith (The forsaken)
Fourth definition: to cause (a person or other animal) to be unwild; to tame; to reduce to a state of domestication or obedience
Synonym: to domesticate
[If young dogs] are suffered to acquire any bad habits, such as ranging too wide, breaking field, inattention to their master, etc., will be with great difficulty reclaimed.
Thomas Johnson (The shooter's companion)
Reader, I stated that when I was first taken in hand by Mr Drummond I was a savage, although a docile one, to be reclaimed by kindness, and kindness only. You may have been surprised at the rapid change […]; that change was produced by kindness. The conduct of Mr Drummond, of his amiable wife and daughter, had been all kindness.
Frederick Marryat (Jacob Faithful)
After being brought to this country in chains he was reclaimed from his savage estate, […] and can now converse intelligently upon all the leading topics of the day.
Harry Wilson (The Boss of Little Arcady)
So much is this the case, that, though it is difficult, or almost impossible, to reclaim a savage, bred from his youth to war and the chase, to the restraints and the duties of civilized life, nothing is more easy or common than to find men who have been educated in all the habits and comforts of improved society, willing to exchange them for the wild labours of the hunter and the fisher.
Walter Scott (The Monastery)
[…] the zebra may hitherto have continued wild, because it is the native of a country where there have been no succeflive efforts made to reclaime it.
Oliver Goldsmith (A history of the Earth…)
Fifth definition: to convert (land) from a wild state into one of fertility, production, cultivation, etc.
The lush green water-meadows speckled with the heavy-fleeced sheep, the acres of corn-land reclaimed from heather and bracken.
Arthur Doyle (Sir Nigel)
This gentleman had reclaimed a considerable extent of marshy ground from the sea, and protected it with an embankment.
John Symonds (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
After breakfasting we set out north over a sandy level, clearly reclaimed from the sea.
Richard Francis Burton (To The Gold Coast for Gold)
Sixth definition: a. To obtain or recover (rubber) from a waste product. b. To make reusable (a waste product, even if it is not rubber)
Synonym: to recover
Intransitively:
Definition: to exclaim; to cry out, particularly in protest. (Rarely used)
The English government reclaimed against this publication.
John Lockhart (The History of Napoleon…)
Other words derived from Latin clamare: See DISCLAIM, in this work.
