reconstruct
Americanverb (used with object)
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reconstructs,
present (3rd person singular)
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reconstructed,
past participle, past
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reconstructing
present participle
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to construct again; rebuild; make over.
The church was burned in 1895, but reconstructed in 1897.
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to re-create in the mind from given or available information.
The first step in solving this crime was to reconstruct the events of the murder.
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to cause to abandon earlier positions, beliefs, etc.; cause to adjust to new or current situations.
He's a reconstructed man with progressive views on gender equality.
The protesters and resisters refuse to be reconstructed.
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Historical Linguistics. to arrive at (hypothetical earlier forms of words, phonemic systems, etc.) by comparison of data from a later language or group of related languages.
verb
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to construct or form again; rebuild
to reconstruct a Greek vase from fragments
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to form a picture of (a crime, past event, etc) by piecing together evidence or acting out a version of what might have taken place
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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reconstructernoun
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reconstructionnoun
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reconstructornoun
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reconstructibleadjective
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reconstructiveadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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reconstructsimple
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reconstructssimple
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have reconstructedperfect
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has reconstructedperfect
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am reconstructingprogressive
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are reconstructingprogressive
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is reconstructingprogressive
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have been reconstructingperfect progressive
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has been reconstructingperfect progressive
Past
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reconstructedsimple
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had reconstructedperfect
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was reconstructingprogressive
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were reconstructingprogressive
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had been reconstructingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of reconstruct
Explanation
If the verb to "construct" means to build something, then to reconstruct means to build it again. You can reconstruct a building, a city, or even an idea. If a house is destroyed in a fire, earthquake, or flood, you might try to reconstruct it — or you could build a totally new one. Either way, though, you could still be said to be reconstructing your home. Some buildings were destroyed so long ago that we don't know what they really looked like. The same can be said for whole cities and cultures. Still, archeologists try to reconstruct how those cities and cultures appeared at the time that they were flourishing. Linguists reconstruct long-dead languages. Detectives try to reconstruct crimes in order to figure out who committed them.
Vocabulary lists containing reconstruct
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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:
“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
Instead, they show how forensic genomics and proteomics can be used to reconstruct the biological history of culturally significant objects.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 4, 2026
An institution that cannot reconstruct what its agent did cannot defend itself, and neither can its insurer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
And I think that trying to reconstruct that experience almost takes away the mystery of it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
The United States provided massive amounts of aid to reconstruct West Germany and to assist other war-devastated countries.
From "Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
In “The First Emancipation: The Forgotten History of Abolition in Revolutionary France,” Jeremy D. Popkin, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Kentucky, reconstructs the intricate political debates that preceded the 1794 law.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
ALFA-K tracks thousands of individual cells over time, accounting for ongoing chromosome instability and reconstructs local fitness landscapes.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 26, 2026
A helpful digital “fly through” video reconstructs the vast fortress, elaborately decorated with brightly colored, often patterned murals.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2025
In three-and-a-half hours and for less than $10 million, Corbet reconstructs post-war America from the ground up, proving his sweeping artistic vision to be just as impressive as László Tóth’s.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2025
Thus Kunze reconstructs a creed of Antioch for the 3rd century, and argues that it is independent of the Roman Creed.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 6 "Coucy-le-Château" to "Crocodile" by Various
Researchers compared the reconstructed dodo brain cavities with those of living pigeons and doves, which are the dodo's closest living relatives.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026
Using geometric and statistical techniques that had not previously been applied to these artifacts, the team reconstructed the directions, angles, and paths of the engraved lines.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 9, 2026
Writing in the Yale Law Journal, Cherneff reconstructed the history of In re Turner, an 1867 decision by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase that helped end the re-enslavement of Black children through involuntary “apprenticeships.”
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
In recent years, a local group of volunteers working under the name Maine’s First Ship reconstructed the Virginia piece by piece using historical materials.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Phineas's reconstructed brain matches brain scans of her patients who had cortex tumor surgery.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
The actor leads a captivating series on National Geographic about the ancient city and its inhabitants, reconstructing the lives of those who might have escaped the lethal effects of Mount Vesuvius’s eruption.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
They then spent a further three years documenting and reconstructing the T. rex back in the lab.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
In other words, to view a Shih piece is to collaborate with the artist on reconstructing or, in some cases, reclaiming an understanding of place and self.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2026
Those textile fragments ultimately became one of the most important sources of evidence in reconstructing the history and age of the collection.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 8, 2026
He still entertained a pair of opinions—or, to use his word, “concepts”—and, in reconstructing the crime, had developed both a “single-killer concept” and a “double-killer concept.”
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
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.
