restitute

verb

res·​ti·​tute ˈre-stə-ˌtüt How to pronounce restitute (audio)
-ˌtyüt
restituted; restituting

transitive verb

1
: to restore to a former state or position
2
: give back
especially : refund

Examples of restitute in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Back in 2007, the Netherlands restituted Isaac van Ostade’s Unloading the Hay Wagon to the heirs of John and Anna Jaffé. Tori Latham, Robb Report, 14 Mar. 2024 The Washington Principles were drafted with the intent of also covering private collections, but there has been far less progress in restituting work now held by individuals, the report found. Carlie Porterfield, CNN, 6 Mar. 2024 He was irked when a woman came to a public talk and argued that they should be restituted. Julie Belcove, Robb Report, 5 Aug. 2023 On a visit to Burkina Faso in 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged the magnitude of African artifacts in European museums and vowed to restitute many from France. Julie Belcove, Robb Report, 5 Aug. 2023 The majority of descendants live in the United States and Israel, but the museum has already or is in the process of also restituting silver pieces to France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Mexico. Kirsten Grieshaber, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 June 2023 Following a lengthy legal battle, a Dutch museum restituted the painting to the family last year. Ella Feldman, Smithsonian Magazine, 16 Feb. 2023 The 1910 landscape was recently restituted to the 13 heirs of a German-Jewish businessman persecuted by the Nazis, Siegbert Stern, and his art-collecting wife, Johanna Margarete Stern-Lippmann. Kelly Crow, WSJ, 1 Mar. 2023 In defining this aim, the task force wrote that any federal program must acknowledge who benefited from slavery, restitute the descendants of those who were enslaved, and provide closure by partnering with them to understand what fair compensation looks like. Nick Martin, The New Republic, 31 July 2020

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'restitute.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Latin restitutus, past participle of restituere

First Known Use

circa 1500, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of restitute was circa 1500

Dictionary Entries Near restitute

Cite this Entry

“Restitute.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/restitute. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

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