rabattre

Old French rabattre meant 'to beat down again'—from re- ('again') and abattre ('to beat down'). In medieval commerce, the word described the act of reducing a price or deducting an amount from a bill. A merchant who rabatted your price literally beat it down for you.

Anglo-Norman merchants brought the term to England in the 14th century, where it became rebate. Its earliest English uses were legal: a rebate was a deduction or reduction in a payment owed. The word appeared in court records from the 1350s onward, always tied to money disputes.

By the 17th century, rebate had settled into two distinct meanings. In commerce, it meant a partial refund after purchase. In architecture, it meant a rectangular groove cut into wood—a rabbet joint. Both senses preserved the original French idea of cutting something back, removing material from a whole.

The modern mail-in rebate emerged in American retail during the 1950s. Manufacturers discovered that many consumers would buy a product for the promise of a rebate but never bother to claim it. The industry calls this 'breakage'—the gap between rebates offered and rebates redeemed. In 2005, the average breakage rate was 40 percent.