reimburse
/ˌriːɪmˈbɜːrs/verb
repay someone for money they have spent
From Latin, via Old French re- (back) + French, from Old French and Medieval Latin imburse (put money in a purse).
Lineage
re-
imburse
The story
Picture a merchant in a busy French market tucking coins into a leather purse: Old French *embourser* meant, quite literally, “put in a purse.” English borrowed the verb as *imburse*, and then attached *re-*—“back”—to make the sense of putting the money back where it belonged. The purse-word goes back through Old French *borse* to Medieval Latin *bursa*, which also gave English *purse*. There’s a small dating wrinkle: Wiktionary records *reimburse* in 1591, while Etymonline dates it to the 1610s; both place it in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. So every reimbursement is, etymologically, a little purse-restoration: the coins come home.