Recurrence or reoccurrence?
recurrence is a noun meaning “Return or reversion to a certain state”; reoccurrence is a noun meaning “An instance of something taking place again”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) recurrence is about 25 times as common as reoccurrence.
What is the difference between recurrence and reoccurrence?
| recurrence | reoccurrence | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun |
| Meaning | Return or reversion to a certain state The instance of recurring; frequent occurrence | An instance of something taking place again |
| Example | Near-synonym: relapse | none recorded |
| Forms | recurrences | reoccurrences |
| Pronunciation | /rəˈkɝ.əns/ | not recorded |
| In writing | 1.6 times per million words | about once in every 16 million words |
Sources: recurrence and reoccurrence in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of recurrence and reoccurrence
recurrence
- 1
Return or reversion to a certain state
- 2
The instance of recurring; frequent occurrence
- 3
A return of symptoms as part of the natural progress of a disease
Near-synonym: relapse
- 4
Recourse
reoccurrence
- 1
An instance of something taking place again
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, recurrence or reoccurrence?
recurrence appears 1.6 times per million words; reoccurrence about once in every 16 million words.
recurrence 1.6 times per million wordsreoccurrence about once in every 16 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search recurrence vs reoccurrence?
“recurrence vs reoccurrence” is searched about 14,800 times a month on Google and 440 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“reoccurrence vs recurrence”, “recurrence or reoccurrence”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.