Definition

1. Adjective:

   • Tending to reform: Having the purpose or effect of improving someone's character or behavior, especially through correction or rehabilitation.

2. Noun:

   • A correctional institution: A facility for the detention, discipline, and training of young or first-time offenders, with the aim of reforming them.

Usage and Examples

• Adjective:

  • The program's reformatory approach focuses on education and skill-building rather than simple punishment.
  • The judge believed the sentence should have a reformatory effect on the juvenile offender.

• Noun:

  • He was sent to a reformatory after his first serious offense.
  • The state closed the old reformatory and opened a new youth rehabilitation center.

Advanced Usage

• The term is often used in historical or formal contexts related to criminal justice and juvenile systems. Its use as an adjective is more formal than its use as a noun.

Variants and Related Words

• Reform (verb/noun): To make changes to improve something; an improvement.
• Reformative (adjective): Another word for the adjective sense of , meaning intended to produce reform.
• Reform school (noun): A synonym for the noun sense of ; an institution for reforming young offenders.

Synonyms

• Adjective: Corrective, rehabilitative, amendatory.
• Noun: Correctional facility, juvenile detention center, training school, reform school.

Antonyms

• Adjective: Corrupting, degrading.
• Noun (conceptually): There is no direct antonym for the institution, but a place of pure punishment without reform could be considered opposite in purpose.

Related Phrases/Idioms

• While there are no common idioms using "reformatory," the concept is central to phrases like:
  • Sent for reform: To be sent to an institution for correction and training.
  • Reformatory measures: Actions or policies designed to correct behavior.

Adjective

1. tending to reform
   • reformative and rehabilitative agencies
   • reformatory punishment

Noun

1. correctional institution for the detention and discipline and training of young or first offenders