rebuild
Americanverb (used with object)
-
rebuilds,
present (3rd person singular)
-
rebuilt,
past participle, past
-
rebuilded,
past participle, past (Archaic)
-
rebuilding
present participle
-
to repair, especially to dismantle and reassemble with new parts.
to rebuild an old car.
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to replace, restrengthen, or reinforce.
to rebuild an army.
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to revise, reshape, or reorganize.
to rebuild a shattered career.
verb (used without object)
-
rebuilds,
present (3rd person singular)
-
rebuilt,
past participle, past
-
rebuilded,
past participle, past (Archaic)
-
rebuilding
present participle
verb
-
to make, construct, or form again
the cost of rebuilding the house
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(tr) to restore (a system or situation) to a previous condition
his struggle to rebuild his life
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
rebuildsimple
-
rebuildssimple
-
have rebuildedperfect
-
have rebuiltperfect
-
has rebuildedperfect
-
has rebuiltperfect
-
am rebuildingprogressive
-
are rebuildingprogressive
-
is rebuildingprogressive
-
have been rebuildingperfect progressive
-
has been rebuildingperfect progressive
Past
-
rebuildedsimple
-
rebuiltsimple
-
had rebuildedperfect
-
had rebuiltperfect
-
was rebuildingprogressive
-
were rebuildingprogressive
-
had been rebuildingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of rebuild
Explanation
When you construct something again, you rebuild it. If the chair you made from scraps of wood collapses when you sit in it, you can either rebuild it or give up on the idea of making your own furniture. When a natural disaster — like a hurricane or a tornado — destroys people's houses, they usually need the community's help to rebuild them. Before modern fire departments existed, several cities in the United States burned in terrible fires, destroying nearly all the homes and businesses. These cities had to rebuild, which they often did using less flammable materials, like bricks, rather than just wood.
Vocabulary lists containing rebuild
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Grant said it was an apt name because his company aimed to rebuild a metals supply chain for America with a smelter planned for Arkansas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
“At a time like this, ICE should be trying to do everything it can to rebuild public trust, to reconstruct itself as a credible law enforcement agency,” Shah said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
All three candidates promised to change, rebuild and unite the party following its worst Holyrood election defeat since devolution.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
“If volatility continues to fall and trends rebuild, systematic strategies can begin adding exposure again. The next meaningful mechanical flow may be re-leveraging rather than deleveraging,” said Rubner.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026
They were all working together to rebuild the town.
From "I Survived the Great Alaska Earthquake, 1964" by Lauren Tarshis
Instead, Ted’s emphasis on personal growth and camaraderie rebuilds the Greyhounds from their league’s demoralized joke into its comeback kings, powered by their yearning to Believe.
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2026
Over the next decade and a half, PSG would undergo one of the most dramatic cultural rebuilds in modern football.
From BBC ● May 29, 2026
“Nothing goes away,” the omniscient narrator observes of a ruined cottage that Tomás rebuilds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
The utility has said that burying the wires as the town rebuilds thousands of homes destroyed in the fire will make the electrical grid safer and more reliable.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2026
By the early nineties, a scientist at Yale had used HeLa to discover that human cancer cells contain an enzyme called telomerase that rebuilds their telomeres.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
Within my own calm mirror a beautiful world had seen itself rebuilded.
From A Tramp's Sketches by Stephen Graham
In a rebuilded Jamestown, Lord De La Warr, of "approved courage, temper and experience," held for a short interval dignified, seigneurial sway, while his restless associates adventured far and wide.
From Pioneers of the Old South: a chronicle of English colonial beginnings by Mary Johnston
Once, there at the beginning of the nineties, Grand Trunk made tentative offers for the control of the rebuilded property.
From The Story of the Rome, Watertown, and Ogdensburg RailRoad by Edward Hungerford
This castle, since rebuilded, you, my children, are of course familiar with, for you were all born here.
From The Black Wolf's Breed A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening in the Reign of Louis XIV by C. M. (Charles Mark) Relyea
Only thus are the walls broken down rebuilded.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture Second Kings Chapters VIII to End and Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Esther, Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes by Alexander Maclaren
Kent estimates that he has rebuilt that truck’s engine about half a dozen times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2026
One of Europe's biggest onshore wind farms is to be flattened and rebuilt with fewer, taller turbines, its owner has announced.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
It said it has now closed the vulnerabilities highlighted by the incident and rebuilt the affected systems.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
But while those reserves helped cushion the blow to the world economy, they will need to be rebuilt ahead of a fresh interruption to supply.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
We returned to our home places and rebuilt, relearned, regrouped.
From "The Marrow Thieves" by Cherie Dimaline
Colombia has received millions of dollars in aid from countries like the United States and organizations like the World Bank, but rebuilding will take time.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
Allison Holdorff Polhill, president of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, who lost her home in the blaze, said that the community is steadily rebuilding but still has a long way to go.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
In the view of Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, the stock market in August is rebuilding exposure after the selloff last month, but “not in a way that has removed the instability.”
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026
By the time Aggarwal arrived for the three-day affair, he had already laid off staff, stopped selling the company’s original product and was rebuilding.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Unfortunately the goddess sent another blessing, too—a gentle rain of gluten-free R.O.F.L. cupcake simulations, which Percy figured would either make cleaning up harder, or rebuilding easier.
From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
