reinforcement

American  

[ree-in-fawrs-muhnt, -fohrs-] / ˌri ɪnˈfɔrs mənt, -ˈfoʊrs- /

noun

reinforcements plural

1. the act of reinforcing.

2. the state of being reinforced.

3. something that reinforces or strengthens.

4. Often reinforcements. an additional supply of personnel, ships, aircraft, etc., for a military force.

5. a system of steel bars, strands, wires, or mesh for absorbing the tensile and shearing stresses in concrete work.

6. Psychology.

   1. a procedure, as a reward or punishment, that alters a response to a stimulus.

   2. the act of reinforcing a response.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonreinforcement
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• reinforcements
  plural

Etymology

Origin of reinforcement

First recorded in 1600–10; reinforce + -ment

Explanation

Reinforcement is a way to learn and remember things, like a student who repeats the facts he has studied for a test over and over, or the ways we praise children when they share their toys or say "please" and "thank you" — reinforcement of the good manners we want them to use. You’ll often hear the word reinforcement used in relation to a building or other structure that gets additional mechanical support, but the word can be used in a broader sense as well. In addition to strengthening walls, reinforcement can refer to the strengthening or propping up of an argument or a particular point of view. For example, if you show up in class every day and ask questions, that adds reinforcement to the notion that you’re a diligent student.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

reinforcement reinforcements

This selective reinforcement produces a current that is concentrated into a particular direction rather than spreading evenly through the material.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 28, 2026

The robot in the simulation was given a task and repeatedly simulated it to identify the most promising solutions, an approach called reinforcement learning.

From BBC ● May 28, 2026

The company, which released a reinforcement learning framework called Miles in November, said it plans to do more work in the model-training layer in the future.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 5, 2026

Anthropic has invested in reinforcement learning specific to finance topics, says Nicholas Lin, head of product for financial services at Anthropic, referring to a way to train agents to optimize their results.

From Barron's ● May 5, 2026

He has painted my tongue blue so that we can easily count the number of whitish taste buds inside the circle of the reinforcement.

From "Liar & Spy" by Rebecca Stead

French President Emmanuel Macron said his country had sought reinforcements from across the continent to help fight the blaze, including Canadair aircraft from Croatia and Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

French President Emmanuel Macron sought firefighting reinforcements from across Europe and scheduled a crisis meeting on the fires for Monday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

He said France had activated the European Union's civil protection mechanism and will receive reinforcements, including two Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

Having missed out on Rogers, the Gunners remain in the market for attacking reinforcements.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

Some time before ten o’clock, he grew nervous about its increasing size and, without Schaffer’s permission, turned in a second alarm to bring in reinforcements.

From "The Great Fire" by Jim Murphy

Related Words

• aid