Word.ws English Dictionary

re-define

re-define is the alternative form of redefine.

Meaning of redefine

Verb

redefine (third-person singular simple present redefines, present participle redefining, simple past and past participle redefined)

  1. (transitive) To define again or differently.
    • But only if one forgets that Mr. Tester is 50 years old, he’s seasoned in state politics, he ran a canny, gloves-off campaign, and he’s the kind of charismatic, hard-to-peg, Western neopopulist (like his friend, Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana) who might be, even now, redefining in certain...2007 January 7, Deirdre Mcnamer, “They Came From Montana”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Jan 2021
    1. (transitive) To give a new or different definition to (a word).
    2. (transitive) To define a previously defined area of storage etc. in a different manner, e.g. changing it from textual to numeric.
      • Next the "key redefiner" software came along. These were special programs that could "redefine" the keys on your keyboard , while still permitting you the normal use of the keys.1992, Herman Holtz, Databased Marketing, page 170

Forms of re-define

third-person singular presentre-defines
present participlere-defining
past participlere-defined
pastre-defined

Questions about re-define

What is re-define the alternative form of?
Re-define is the alternative form of redefine.

Words near re-define in the dictionary

  1. re-cultivate
  2. re-defect
  3. re-defected
  4. re-defecting
  5. re-defects
  6. re-define
  7. re-defined
  8. re-defines
  9. re-defining
  10. re-deport
  11. re-deported

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: re-define (page history and authors); redefine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “re-define.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/re-define. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.