Reclaim
[rɪ'kleɪm] or [rɪ'klem]
Definition
(verb.) make useful again; transform from a useless or uncultivated state; 'The people reclaimed the marshes'.
(verb.) reuse (materials from waste products).
(verb.) claim back.
Edited by Hilda--From WordNet
Definition
(v. t.) To claim back; to demand the return of as a right; to attempt to recover possession of.
(v. t.) To call back, as a hawk to the wrist in falconry, by a certain customary call.
(v. t.) To call back from flight or disorderly action; to call to, for the purpose of subduing or quieting.
(v. t.) To reduce from a wild to a tamed state; to bring under discipline; -- said especially of birds trained for the chase, but also of other animals.
(v. t.) Hence: To reduce to a desired state by discipline, labor, cultivation, or the like; to rescue from being wild, desert, waste, submerged, or the like; as, to reclaim wild land, overflowed land, etc.
(v. t.) To call back to rectitude from moral wandering or transgression; to draw back to correct deportment or course of life; to reform.
(v. t.) To correct; to reform; -- said of things.
(v. t.) To exclaim against; to gainsay.
(v. i.) To cry out in opposition or contradiction; to exclaim against anything; to contradict; to take exceptions.
(v. i.) To bring anyone back from evil courses; to reform.
(v. i.) To draw back; to give way.
(n.) The act of reclaiming, or the state of being reclaimed; reclamation; recovery.
Inputed by Fidel
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. [1]. Reform.[2]. Regain, recover, restore, reinstate.
Inputed by Joanna
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Reform, recal, recover, regain, rescue, restore, amend, convert, better
ANT:Vitiate, corrupt, sterilize, worsen
Typist: Sol
Definition
v.t. to demand the return of: to regain: to bring back from a wild or barbarous state or from error or vice: to bring into a state of cultivation: to bring into the desired condition: to make tame or gentle: to reform.—v.i. to cry out or exclaim: (Scots law) to appeal from the Lord Ordinary to the inner house of the Court of Session.—adj. Reclaim′able that may be reclaimed or reformed.—adv. Reclaim′ably.—ns. Reclaim′ant one who reclaims; Reclamā′tion act of reclaiming: state of being reclaimed as of waste land: demand: recovery.
Checker: Wayne
Examples
- My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.
- I should not dream of doing so were it not absolutely certain that I should be able in four days to reclaim it. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
- I had no hope of interfering with success; and sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet reclaim him. Jane Austen. Sense and Sensibility.
- He is suffered to reclaim his own, and so to foster and aid that it shall not perish hopeless. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- Mrs. Crawley and her child would remain behind until he came to reclaim them. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- The result was, that he would make one more attempt to reclaim him, and in case of ill success, cast him off for ever. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- The mother, having lost her boy, imagined a grandson, and wished in a double sense to reclaim her daughter. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- The packet not reclaimed before the ringing of the bell to-night, you cannot buy. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- Once angered, I doubt if Dr. Bretton were to be soon propitiated--once alienated, whether he were ever to be reclaimed. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- You will be reclaimed and formed. Charles Dickens. Hard Times.
- On the night in question, I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed from fungi and mould, listening to what seemed the far-off sounds of the city. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable now. Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.
- Now all such rubber is reclaimed, and used in many grades of goods which do not require a pure gum. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
Typed by Deirdre