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say it: ruh-FAWRM
reform is a verb and noun meaning "make changes for improvement in order to remove abuse and injustices". It is pronounced /ɹəˈfɔɹm/ — ruh-FAWRM. It carries 9 recorded senses.
make changes for improvement in order to remove abuse and injustices
“reform a political system”
bring, lead, or force to abandon a wrong or evil course of life, conduct, and adopt a right one
“The Church reformed me”
“reform your conduct”
improve by alteration or correction of errors or defects and put into a better condition
“reform the health system in this country”
change for the better
“The lazy student promised to reform”
“the habitual cheater finally saw the light”
a change for the better as a result of correcting abuses
“justice was for sale before the reform of the law courts”
a campaign aimed to correct abuses or malpractices
“the reforms he proposed were too radical for the politicians”
self-improvement in behavior or morals by abandoning some vice
“the family rejoiced in the drunkard's reform”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for reform come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.