re-enact
Americanverb (used with object)
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to enact for a second or subsequent time.
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to repeat, particularly as a performance, something which happened previously.
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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re-enactsimple
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re-enactssimple
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have re-enactedperfect
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has re-enactedperfect
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am re-enactingprogressive
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are re-enactingprogressive
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is re-enactingprogressive
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have been re-enactingperfect progressive
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has been re-enactingperfect progressive
Past
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re-enactedsimple
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had re-enactedperfect
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was re-enactingprogressive
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were re-enactingprogressive
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had been re-enactingperfect progressive
Future
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:
The political centerpiece of 1968 was, at least if you’re French, the événements of May, in which bourgeois students took to the streets of Paris to re-enact the revolutionary theater of 1789.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 21, 2025
I found trying to get actors to recreate these scenarios and re-enact anything from scenarios I read about in my research and from witness testimony, is definitely the wrong way to go about it.
From Salon ● Jan. 25, 2024
As Colbie got older, she and her sister would re-enact “Mystery Box” cooking challenges, imitating what they saw on “MasterChef Junior.”
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 5, 2023
Like an ancient myth of resurrection, Eliade argued, the Indian Rope Trick used symbols to re-enact events both cosmic and worldly: the origin and end of the universe, the life cycle of death and rebirth.
From New York Times ● Jan. 2, 2023
“If you don’t care about what you say or do, then why didn’t you re-enact that crime out at the Dalton home today?”
From "Native Son" by Richard Wright
On stage, Lion re-enacts the struggle between man and machine, going from ChatGPT to ChatGP-Free.
From BBC ● May 8, 2026
Pope Francis had performed this ceremony, which re-enacts Jesus's gesture toward his apostles, among marginalised people, whether prisoners, migrants or the homeless.
From Barron's ● Apr. 1, 2026
People gather around the flames to sing, dance and pray for an evening ritual called Holika Dahan, which re-enacts the demise of a Hindu mythical demoness, Holika.
From New York Times ● Mar. 22, 2024
To watch as Wile E. Coyote chases the Roadrunner through “Mad Max: Fury Road,” or as Granny re-enacts bullet-time martial arts moves from “The Matrix,” is to discover the answer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2021
He had the air of one who recalls the good old days, of one who in familiar scenes re-enacts the joys of his vanished youth.
From Uneasy Money by Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
Congress re-enacted the same language after the 14th Amendment was adopted, suggesting an identical operation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
Dean jokingly re-enacted the dismissal in a game for Southern Vipers the following day and the pair have since played together for London Spirit, winning The Hundred last year.
From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2025
But something about the unnerving intelligence of Glazer’s conception, the obsessive intensity with which he has excavated and re-enacted this chapter of history, resists the usual bromides about finding the universal in the specific.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 14, 2023
My parents had ensured that I watch re-enacted versions of the Indian epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana on our tiny TV screen in my small Iowan midwestern town.
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2023
The mother held up her hands and re-enacted the scene.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
The Catholic-majority country's annual spectacle re-enacting the last moments of Jesus Christ typically draws up to 12,000 local and foreign tourists.
From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026
This was also the heyday of traveling extravaganzas like Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West shows, which featured hundreds of performers re-enacting frontier battles and showing off their hunting and sharpshooting skills.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 15, 2026
On Friday, he is due to travel at night to the Colosseum for the Way of the Cross procession re-enacting Christ’s crucifixion.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 28, 2024
She has natural energy and charisma, and has more success with a relatable routine re-enacting a group chat between the typical members of a female friendship group.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2023
Silent Sam was re-enacting the entire episode in pantomime for the benefit of Tim and Tess and some other infant creatures.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
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.
