Hi guybc,
Simply put, it's not a question of 'recent' means in isolation it's a 'most recent used' list, for which a definition of 'recent' on its own is meaningless. The list reports the 1-17 most recently opened files, in order from 'most recent' to 'least recent'. The list does not purport to show however many files you've opened in the last hour, for example, or that files in the list will have been opened within, say, the last week.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]