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From Latin recessus.



recess ‎(plural recesses)

  1. (countable or uncountable) A break, pause or vacation.
    Spring recess offers a good chance to travel.
    • Macaulay
      The recess of [] Parliament lasted six weeks.
  2. An inset, hole, space or opening.
    Put a generous recess behind the handle for finger space.
    • Washington Irving
      a bed which stood in a deep recess
  3. (US) A time of play, usually, on a playground.
    Students who do not listen in class will not play outside during recess.
  4. A decree of the imperial diet of the old German empire.
  5. (archaic) A withdrawing or retiring; a moving back; retreat.
    the recess of the tides
    • South
    • Eikon Basilike
      My recess hath given them confidence that I may be conquered.
  6. (archaic) The state of being withdrawn; seclusion; privacy.
    • Sir M. Hale
    • Dryden
      Good verse recess and solitude requires.
  7. (archaic) A place of retirement, retreat, secrecy, or seclusion.
    • Milton
      Departure from his happy place, our sweet / Recess, and only consolation left.
  8. A secret or abstruse part.
    the difficulties and recesses of science
    (Can we find and add a quotation of I. Watts to this entry?)
  9. (botany, zoology) A sinus.


Derived terms[edit]



recess ‎(third-person singular simple present recesses, present participle recessing, simple past and past participle recessed)

  1. To inset into something, or to recede.
    Wow, look at how that gargoyle recesses into the rest of architecture.
    Recess the screw so it does not stick out.
  2. (intransitive) To take or declare a break.
    This court shall recess for its normal two hour lunch now.
    Class will recess for 20 minutes.
  3. (transitive, informal) To appoint, with a recess appointment.
    • 2013, Michael Grunwald, "Cliff Dweller", in Time, ISSN 0040-781X, volume 181, number 1, 2013 January 14, page 27:
      To the National Rifle Association's delight, the Senate has hobbled the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by failing to confirm a director since 2006, but Obama hasn't made a recess appointment. [] "The President's view of his own power is a constrained one," says White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. "Many of his nominees have languished, but he's only recessed the ones that were critical to keep agencies functioning."
  4. To make a recess in.
    to recess a wall




  1. (obsolete, rare) Remote, distant (in time or place).
    Thomas Salusbury: Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: I should think it best in the subsequent discourses to begin to examine whether the Earth be esteemed immoveable, as it hath been till now believed by most men, or else moveable, as some ancient Philosophers held, and others of not very recesse times were of opinion;




recess c

  1. a decision, an agreement, a return (to previous conditions)
  2. a recess, a niche


Inflection of recess 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative recess recessen recesser recesserna
Genitive recess recessens recessers recessernas