Resurface

//ɹiːˈsɜːfɪs// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To come once again to the surface. intransitive

    "His body finally resurfaced after three years underwater."

  2. 2
    to come out of obscurity or hiding wordnet
  3. 3
    To surface again; to reappear or re-occur. intransitive

    "Just as amazing, gruesome morgue photos of some of the madman's street-walker victims also resurfaced after being missing for decades."

  4. 4
    cover with a new surface wordnet
  5. 5
    To make something reappear. rare, transitive

    "Tourian's poem exhibits a central strand of the Catholic tradition which has been suppressed in Armenian religious life but needs to be resurfaced."

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    reappear on the surface wordnet
  2. 7
    To provide a new surface, to replace or remodel the surface of something, or to restore a surface. To put a new coating or finish on a surface. transitive

    "A zamboni is a big machine that resurfaces ice at a rink so it is smooth as glass for the skaters."

Synonyms

All synonyms
return

Example

More examples

"No controversy is ever over for good. It will always resurface at some point."

Etymology

From re- + surface.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.