These words refer to getting back something that has been lost. Recover is the most general; it can refer to finding a lost item by chance or accident as easily as by intention and effort: recovering the other slipper while searching the hall cupboard one day for something else; recovering his position of eminence among his fellow scientists only in the last days of his life. Most concretely, retrieve suggests something that has not so much been lost as slipped beyond reach, and requires some effort to recover : retrieving the floating paddle by leaning out along the prow of the canoe.

Recoup is drawn from legal terminology to mean, in ordinary use, a recovering of something similar to or equivalent to a disastrous or negligent loss: recouping his losses at the racecourse by embezzling funds from his bank. Like recover , regain stresses getting back the very thing lost, but in contrast it tends to be restricted to a deliberate and laborious search or effort: regaining the hill lost the night before to the enemy; regaining his eyesight after several operations; regaining the heavyweight championship in last week’s fight.

Reclaim and restore both suggest bringing something back to its original condition; reclaim is used largely of land or extensive areas, restore of buildings or art objects: reclaiming good farmlands from the polluted swaps; restoring the house to the way it might have looked in the 1820s. Reclaim may also suggest an interval in which the right to a position or to a property has been transferred or disputed: reclaiming his title to the inheritance after a protracted legal battle.