re-educate

A physical therapist helps a patient re-educate their leg muscles.

Definition

1. Verb:
   • To educate again or anew: "re-educate" means to provide education or training to someone again, often to change their beliefs, habits, or skills.
   • To rehabilitate through training: In a medical context, "re-educate" refers to retraining a limb or part of the body that has been affected by paralysis or injury to restore function.

Usage Examples

• (To provide new education or training to change their behavior.)
• (To retrain the limb to regain movement.)

Advanced Usage

• "to re-educate the palate": to train one's taste or preferences again, especially in food or drink.
  • After years of eating processed foods, she decided to re-educate her palate by trying fresh, organic ingredients. (To retrain her taste to appreciate healthier options.)
• "political re-education": a process of changing someone's political beliefs, often through compulsory training.
  • The regime forced dissidents into camps for political re-education. (A controversial practice to alter political ideology.)

Variants and Related Words

• Re-education (noun): the act or process of educating again.
  • The re-education of the workforce was necessary after the industry shifted to automation. (The process of retraining employees.)
• Re-educative (adj): relating to or serving the purpose of re-education.
  • The program had a re-educative approach, focusing on new skills and attitudes. (Designed to educate again.)

Synonyms

• Retrain: to teach new skills or to train again.
• Rehabilitate: to restore to a former state or to a useful life through training or therapy.
• Reorient: to change the direction or focus of someone's learning or beliefs.

Phrasal Verbs

• "Re-educate" is typically used as a single verb without common phrasal verb forms.

Related Idioms

• The word "re-educate" is formal and technical, and does not commonly appear in idiomatic expressions.