means To come or go back to a place, state, or person — or to give, send, or bring something back to where it came from.

from From Old French 'retorner,' itself a knitting-together of the Latin prefix 're-' ('back, again') and 'tornare' ('to turn on a lathe,' from 'tornus,' a turner's wheel). So at its root a return is literally a turning-back — the same 'tornare' that spins inside 'turn' and 'tournament.' English borrowed it in the medieval period, and it has been turning travelers homeward ever since.