RECLAIM

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does reclaim mean? 

• RECLAIM (verb)
  The verb RECLAIM has 5 senses:

1. claim back

2. reuse (materials from waste products)

3. bring, lead, or force to abandon a wrong or evil course of life, conduct, and adopt a right one

4. make useful again; transform from a useless or uncultivated state

5. overcome the wildness of; make docile and tractable

  Familiarity information: RECLAIM used as a verb is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RECLAIM (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they reclaim    ... he / she / it reclaims   
Past simple: reclaimed   
Past participle: reclaimed   
-ing form: reclaiming   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Claim back

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Synonyms:

reclaim; repossess

Hypernyms (to "reclaim" is one way to...):

acquire; get (come into the possession of something concrete or abstract)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "reclaim"):

distrain (legally take something in place of a debt payment)

foreclose (subject to foreclosing procedures; take away the right of mortgagors to redeem their mortgage)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something from somebody

Sense 2

Meaning:

Reuse (materials from waste products)

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Synonyms:

reclaim; recover

Hypernyms (to "reclaim" is one way to...):

recycle; reprocess; reuse (use again after processing)

"Reclaim" entails doing...:

preserve; save (to keep up and reserve for personal or special use)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

reclamation (the recovery of useful substances from waste products)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Bring, lead, or force to abandon a wrong or evil course of life, conduct, and adopt a right one

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

reclaim; rectify; reform; regenerate

Context example:

reform your conduct

Hypernyms (to "reclaim" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

Verb group:

reform; see the light; straighten out (change for the better)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "reclaim"):

moralise; moralize (improve the morals of)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Derivation:

reclamation (rescuing from error and returning to a rightful course)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Make useful again; transform from a useless or uncultivated state

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Context example:

The people reclaimed the marshes

Hypernyms (to "reclaim" is one way to...):

convert (change the nature, purpose, or function of something)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

reclamation (the conversion of wasteland into land suitable for use of habitation or cultivation)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Overcome the wildness of; make docile and tractable

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

domesticate; domesticise; domesticize; reclaim; tame

Context example:

reclaim falcons

Hypernyms (to "reclaim" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

Verb group:

domesticate; tame (make fit for cultivation, domestic life, and service to humans)

Domain category:

animal; animate being; beast; brute; creature; fauna (a living organism characterized by voluntary movement)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "reclaim"):

break; break in (make submissive, obedient, or useful)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

 Context examples 

I should not dream of doing so were it not absolutely certain that I should be able in four days to reclaim it.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I had no hope of interfering with success; and sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet reclaim him.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Make up your mind to that, or I'll never go, she added resolutely, as he tried to reclaim his load.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

You will find her father a white-haired old man, said my aunt, though a better man in all other respects—a reclaimed man.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The others returned, the room filled again, benches were reclaimed and repossessed, and another hour of pleasure or of penance was to be sat out, another hour of music was to give delight or the gapes, as real or affected taste for it prevailed.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I had, by cross-ways and by- paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and now, only a few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the heath from which they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the dusky hill.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I did not feel justified in giving a wife of Mrs. Micawber's experience any other recommendation, than that she should try to reclaim Mr. Micawber by patience and kindness (as I knew she would in any case); but the letter set me thinking about him very much.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)