Word.ws English Dictionary

reinvented the wheel

reinvented the wheel is the simple past and past participle of reinvent the wheel.

Meaning of reinvent the wheel

Verb

reinvent the wheel (third-person singular simple present reinvents the wheel, present participle reinventing the wheel, simple past and past participle reinvented the wheel)

  1. (idiomatic) To do work unnecessarily when it has already been done satisfactorily by others; to attempt to devise a solution to a problem when a solution already exists.
    • The trading of information so that people need not reinvent the wheel.1987 August 22, Chris Bull, quoting Craig Harris, “CDC Ripped at Minority AIDS Conference”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 6, page 1

Questions about reinvented the wheel

What is reinvented the wheel the simple past and past participle of?
Reinvented the wheel is the simple past and past participle of reinvent the wheel.

Words near reinvented the wheel in the dictionary

  1. reinvasions
  2. reinvent
  3. reinvent the wheel
  4. reinventable
  5. reinvented
  6. reinvented the wheel
  7. reinventing
  8. reinventing the wheel
  9. reinvention
  10. reinvention of the wheel
  11. reinventional

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reinvented the wheel (page history and authors); reinvent the wheel (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: “reinvented the wheel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/reinvented_the_wheel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.