re-enact
Americanverb (used with object)
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re-enacts,
present (3rd person singular)
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re-enacted,
past participle, past
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re-enacting
present participle
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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
-
have been re-enactingperfect progressive
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has been re-enactingperfect progressive
Past
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re-enactedsimple
-
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:
Maybe the way to improve the off-site is to re-enact the playful things we did at an age when making friends seemed easier.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
Thankfully, Barry didn't feel the need to re-enact his performance, staying safely ensconced in his seat.
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2024
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
“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
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
In a video recording of a pre-trial hearing, which has never been broadcast before, the most junior member of the squad, Lance Corporal Humberto Mendoza is questioned and re-enacts events at Safa's house.
From BBC ● Nov. 16, 2025
In the fictional satire “Donbass,” which opens on April 8, Loznitsa re-enacts bizarre and disturbing episodes from Russian incursions into eastern Ukraine in the 2010s.
From New York Times ● Apr. 1, 2022
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
When a child re-enacts what he sees, he comes to a better understanding of its meaning.
From The Unfolding Life A Study of Development with Reference to Religious Training by Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
Then he and Sterling K. Brown re-enacted the famous “of all the gin joints” piano scene between Rick and Sam from “Casablanca.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 16, 2026
She is said to have been so amused to see local farm workers chasing it, she rewarded them land – on condition that the chase be re-enacted every year.
From BBC ● Jan. 6, 2025
Enlisting comedian and frequent on-air talent Guillermo, Kimmel re-enacted the moment when the foreman delivered the decision on all 34 counts–guilty.
From Salon ● May 31, 2024
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
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
MPs and peers walked in procession from the Palace of Westminster to Westminster Abbey, re-enacting the historic walk MPs did from Parliament on VE Day in 1945.
From BBC ● May 8, 2025
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
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
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