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• reshore •

Pronunciation: ri-shor • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb

Meaning: To return jobs and operations of a company to its country of origin.

Notes: Today's word is the latest word on the path from outsource to offshore to reshore. Companies and the jobs they represent are moving back to America in record numbers these days. The same spelling is used for an archaic past tense of shear.

In Play: Past US presidents have promised to bring offshored jobs back to America, but now a businessman has joined the effort. Harry Moser founded the nonprofit "Reshoring Initiative" in 2010 which is successfully promoting reshoring with arguments based on economic analyses. Reshoring is gaining momentum throughout the country behind the backs of the mainstream media.

Word History: Today's Good Word has been in Scots English since the 17th century, though the Oxford English Dictionary reports that it is so rare, it cannot report a meaning. The word was obviously built from re- "again, back" + shore. Shore goes back to Old English sceora, from PIE sker-/skor- "to cut". We can see how the sense of English shore might have developed from PIE (s)ker-/(s)kor- since oceans cut the shoreline in ways that fit them. Without the Fickle S we find Armenian k'orem "I scratch", Greek keirein "to shear, shave", Albanian harr "cut out, weed", Russian korotkii "short", and Lithuanian kerti "to come off". With the Fickle S we find English short, sharp, and scar, and Latvian šk'rpele "scythe". (It has been far too long since I credited our editorial staff, Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira, Mary Jane Stoneburg, and Jeremy Busch for their constant work—gratis—for our word-a-day series. More misspellings and other missteps would be occurring in the Good Words were it not for them.)

'Repatriate' could have been used for this. 'Reshore' sounds jargony to my ear.

Audiendus,
Amen!
It sounds like someone lisping... or perhaps a bit "under the weather", to me.

But then it wouldn't fit in so nicely with offshore. Or should that one be expatriation?

Another, limited use, re- verb is 'reshop.' That's what grocery stores do with items left unpurchased, but that can still be put back on the shelf for sale. You shop and don't buy, they reshop it.

I don't think "repatriate" is quite the same. That implies intentional action by the entity where the objects/persons/situations are currently located.

"Reshore" (as I understand it) involves action by only the original entity.

Regarding "reshop", I believe "restock" is already used to describe that action. But I propose that "reshop" could mean that I bought a pair of shoes I like so much that I went back to get another pair.

Restocking could also mean to put new items out to replace those sold.

I got my 'reshop' from my local Wegmans (grocery store), which uses a cart with a 'reshop' sign on it for taking things back out to the shelves. Perhaps it's just them, though.