Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use recur in a sentence

19 example sentences · verb

Recur means of an event, situation, etc.: to appear or happen again, especially repeatedly. Example: “The theme of the prodigal son recurs later in the third act.”

Examples of recur by meaning

verbOf an event, situation, etc.: to appear or happen again, especially repeatedly.

  • The theme of the prodigal son recurs later in the third act.
  • Finally the question recurred, but flung now like a challenging gauntlet in the lists: Why not order today?1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LXXXVI, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC, page 449
  • The word recurred curiously.1920, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “The Wedded Wife”, in The Lost Girl, London: Martin Secker […], →OCLC, page 316

verbOf a disease or symptom: to happen again, especially repeatedly or after a remission or an apparent recovery.

  • Well, it had recurred about four months ago.1928 July 27, Radclyffe Hall, chapter 52, in The Well of Loneliness […], New York, N.Y.: Covici Friede Publishers, published December 1928...

verbTo speak, think, or write about something again; to go back or return to a memory, a subject, etc.

  • I'm sorry to say any ill of your friends, and the thing was a long time ago; besides which there was nothing to make me recur to it.1904 November 10, Henry James, chapter XXXIV, in The Golden Bowl, volume II, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, 2nd book (The...
  • Over the last few days her mind had time and again recurred to these elusive beings and those few elusive comments.1993 May, Vikram Seth, chapter 3, in A Suitable Boy, London: Phoenix, Orion Books, published 1996, →ISBN, page 171

More sentences with recur

  • The wilderness testings of Jesus prepare him for ministry in which such temptations and shortcuts will recur.2011, Emerson B. Powery, Immersion Bible Studies: Luke. From the entry testing
  • Symptoms pointing to mild hepatic and gastrointestinal derangement have thus recurred for several years.1906, California State Journal of Medicine, volume 4, page 169. From the entry valetudinous
  • This motif recurs further west, on and facing both sides of the scheme in spandrels SUNW2 and SCNE6.2020, Philippa Turner, Jane Hawkes, The Rood in Medieval Britain and Ireland, C.800-C.1500, Boydell & Brewer, →ISBN, page 165. From the entry ecranche
  • Some very specific obsessions recur throughout his ludography: themes involving the subconscious, the nature of the mind, and the manipulated hero.2019 Nicolas Courcier, Mehdi El Kanafi, The Legend of Final Fantasy VII: Creation - Universe - Decryption "Nomura's Influence" (Third…. From the entry ludography
  • This Euler inequality recurs as either the cornerstone or the straw man in many theories contained in this book.2018, Lars Ljungqvist and Thomas J. Sargent, Recursive macroeconomic theory, 4th edition, MIT Press, page 4. From the entry straw man
  • A biotechnology cancer drug cuts in half the risk that one type of breast cancer will recur after surgery.2005 April 26, Andrew Pollack, “Breast Cancer Recurrence Is Cut in Half by a Drug”, in New York Times, retrieved 23 Jul 2014. From the entry in half
  • There are two specific kinds of etymythology that continually recur.2005, Michael Quinion, Port Out, Starboard Home: The Fascinating Stories We Tell About the words We Use, Penguin Books Limited, page 8. From the entry etymythology
  • Lobules, homologous in structure, recur again only in the Gondwanalandic families Lepidolaenaceae and Jubulopsidaceae thus in the Lepidolaenineae.1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.…. From the entry homologous
  • Mention of dinosaurs, pterodactyls and gorgosauruses in particular, recurs in the Tenth and Eleventh Cantos as part of his geological imagery (CN, 45-55).1987, Valerie Broege, “Puer Country: Imaging Canada and Its American Shadow”, in Spring: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian…. From the entry gorgosaurus
  • When historians evaluate the contribution of Generation X one theme will recur over and over again, and that is the rage and revulsion handed from Father to Son.1964, Charles Hamblett, Jane Deverson, Generation X, →OCLC, page 191. From the entry Generation X
  • In its own way, matter obeyed from the beginning that great law of biology to which we shall have to recur time and time again, the law of 'complexification'.1955, Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, page 48. From the entry complexification
  • One of the questions which seem to recur more often that most is the reason for selection of the red light as a danger signal on railways.1943 July and August, “Red Light for Danger”, in Railway Magazine, page 189. From the entry clear-cut
  • Nothing more happened to ruffle Mr Pontifex, so we had a delightful evening, which has often recurred to me while watching the after career of my godson.1903, Samuel Butler, chapter 18, in The Way of All Flesh, London: Grant Richards, page 80. From the entry aftercareer

Meaning of recur

  1. verb Of an event, situation, etc.: to appear or happen again, especially repeatedly.
  2. verb Of a disease or symptom: to happen again, especially repeatedly or after a remission or an apparent recovery.
  3. verb Of a memory, thought, etc.: to come to the mind again.

Full definition of recur

Questions about recur in a sentence

How do you use recur in a sentence?
Recur is used as a verb. For example: “The theme of the prodigal son recurs later in the third act.”
What is a short sentence with recur?
“The word recurred curiously.”
What does recur mean?
Recur means of an event, situation, etc.: to appear or happen again, especially repeatedly.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: recur (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use recur in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/recur. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.