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Reform   /rəfˈɔrm/  /rɪfˈɔrm/   Listen
noun
Reform  n.  Amendment of what is defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved; reformation; as, reform of elections; reform of government.
Civil service reform. See under Civil.
Reform acts (Eng. Politics), acts of Parliament passed in 1832, 1867, 1884, 1885, extending and equalizing popular representation in Parliament.
Reform school, a school established by a state or city government, for the confinement, instruction, and reformation of juvenile offenders, and of young persons of idle, vicious, and vagrant habits. (U. S.)
Synonyms: Reformation; amendment; rectification; correction. See Reformation.



verb
Reform  v. t.  To put into a new and improved form or condition; to restore to a former good state, or bring from bad to good; to change from worse to better; to amend; to correct; as, to reform a profligate man; to reform corrupt manners or morals. "The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age; but that of a good one will not reform it."
Synonyms: To amend; correct; emend; rectify; mend; repair; better; improve; restore; reclaim.



Reform  v. i.  To return to a good state; to amend or correct one's own character or habits; as, a man of settled habits of vice will seldom reform.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Reform" Quotes from Famous Books



... B.C. 126, the Tribune M. Junius Pennus carried a law that all aliens should quit the city. Caius Gracchus spoke against this law, and his friends still remained faithful to the cause of the Italians. In the following year (B.C. 125), M. Fulvius Flaccus, who was then Consul, brought forward a Reform Bill, granting the Roman citizenship to all the Italian allies. But it was evident that the Tribes would reject this law, and the Senate got rid of the proposer by sending him into Transalpine Gaul, where the Massilians had implored the assistance of Rome ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... who can believe that Sir Robert Peel would not be ready to carry out their views? Readers, it may be that to you such deeds as those are horrible even to be thought of or expressed; to me I own that they are so. So also to Sir Robert Peel was Catholic Emancipation horrible, so was Reform of Parliament, so was the Corn Law Repeal. They were horrible to him, horrible to be thought of, horrible to be expressed. But the people required these measures, and therefore he carried them, arguing on their behalf with all the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... before the people of New York could realise the depths of degradation to which the politics of that time could sink. If Tweed had stolen only half as much as he did, investigation and discovery and reform would have been impossible. The re-election of Morrisey was necessary. He was elected not by the vote of his old partisans alone, but by Republicans. Hamilton Fish, General Grant's secretary, voted for him. Peter Cooper, the friend of education and the founder ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... have the fate of all freedom; it will not be introduced into our laws until after it has taken possession of our minds. But if it be true that a reform must be generally understood, in order that it may be solidly established, it follows that nothing can retard it so much as that which misleads public opinion; and what is more likely to mislead ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... Downing Street and accredited Semblance? but, How do you agree with God's Universe and the actual Reality of things? This Universe has its Laws. If we walk according to the Law, the Law-Maker will befriend us; if not, not. Alas, by no Reform Bill, Ballot-box, Five-point Charter, by no boxes or bills or charters, can you perform this alchemy: 'Given a world of Knaves, to produce an Honesty from their united action!' It is a distillation, once for all, not possible. You pass it through alembic after alembic, it ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle


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