Recycle Meaning
/ˌɹiːˈsaɪkəl/Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
verbTo break down and reuse component materials.
verbTo reuse as a whole.
Sentence Examples
There is a big movement today to recycle trash.
We should be more careful to recycle more trash.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
Every household should ____ plastic bottles instead of throwing them away to help the environment.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The city encouraged residents to ____ paper, glass, and plastic to reduce landfill waste.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree Proto-Italic *wre- Latin re-der. Old French re-bor. Middle English re- English re- Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- Proto-Indo-European *kʷékʷlos Ancient Greek κῠ́κλος (kŭ́klos)der. Late Latin cyclusbor. Middle English cicle English cycle English recycle From re- + cycle.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Recycling and reusing the material eliminates the need to import aggregate, a strategy which has avoided over 50,000 lorry movements on local roads."
— 2024 May 29, “Network News: HS2's Bromford Tunnel portal complete ready for TBM breakthrough...”, in RAIL, number 1010, page 14:
"Jokes are recycled so frequently, it’s as if comedy writing was eating a hole in the ozone layer: If the audience had a nickel for every time a character on one side of the frame says something could never happen as it simultaneously happens on the other side of the frame, they’d have enough to pay the surcharge for the movie’s badly implemented 3-D."
— 2012 July 12, Sam Adams, “Ice Age: Continental Drift”, in AV Club:
"He [Huw Jones] was hauled down in England’s 22 but, when the ball was quickly recycled, [Finn] Russell’s miss-pass gave Sean Maitland the room to score in the left corner."
— 2018 February 24, Paul Rees, “Finn Russell masterminds historic Scotland victory over England”, in The Guardian, London, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2018:
"Now populists recycle communist verities: the fetishisation of working-class culture, the vision of a good “people” fighting a bad elite, the belief that the state should control business and the dismissal of parliamentary democracy as a bourgeois sham."
— 2025 September 13, Simon Kuper, “How Maga rewrote the Little Red Book”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 18:
"Recycling is no longer a chore when this convenient recycling center is a fixture in your kitchen."
— 2003, The Complete Guide to Easy Woodworking Projects: 50 Projects You Can Build With Hand Power Tools, Minneapolis: Creative Publishing International, page 270:
Explore More A2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Every household should ____ plastic bottles instead of throwing them away to help the environment.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The city encouraged residents to ____ paper, glass, and plastic to reduce landfill waste.