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:
The rebuild could reassert the city as a central player in the wider sports scene, Guardabascio said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 2026
Syria has been trying to rebuild its military facilities that were damaged during the offensive that saw Bashar al-Assad's government overthrown.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
It added that ranchers need to rebuild the US cattle herd -- or demand would have to cool -- in order for beef prices to fall.
From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026
After Lockheed, Kubasik worked to rebuild his career.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
We will reset the people in the compound, and work to rebuild this place together.
From "Allegiant" by Veronica Roth
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
The findings support a broader model in which fresh magma gradually enters and rebuilds reservoirs beneath giant calderas after major eruptions.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
Regional facilities that handle plane inspections and rebuilds feel the squeeze the most.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 26, 2026
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which serves most of the Palisades, also has a rebate program for electric wildfire rebuilds, with subsidies for all-electric homes or individual appliances.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 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
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
But whence cometh all this to you, these stuffs and vessels, and who was it rebuilded this house in a space so short?
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 16 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
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
Women, South, glorious Rachels, weeping for children who are not and with brave hearts working amid desolate homes, the star and inspiration of a rebuilded land.
From The Bishop of Cottontown A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills by John Trotwood Moore
In 1988, he founded WallBuilders, named for a biblical passage in which the Jewish people rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
Meanwhile, the 12th-century Church of San Luca, rebuilt in the 17th century by the Spinola family, is deceptively simple on the outside, and a whirlwind of Baroque decoration on the inside.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
Mikel Arteta is still there, they are coming off an 85-point title-winning season and they have strengthened rather than rebuilt.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
Vendors have little hope that the market will be rebuilt before the end of the war.
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
It had been totally rebuilt from dazzling white marble, bigger and grander than ever—with golden windows and rooftop gardens.
From "The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan
Yet "cattle producers still face substantial uncertainty that clouds herd rebuilding decisions," Bernt Nelson, an economist at the federation wrote.
From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026
Pat Nevin: Midfield, management, you name it - City are rebuilding.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
St. Bernard’s Dean Herrington takes on a rebuilding job.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
Per the Journal, the hard-liners who occupy the country’s key military posts have focused on rebuilding their missile and drone arsenal.
From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2026
In 1871, few people were able to look so many years ahead to see the deeper consequences of the fire and the city’s rebuilding.
From "The Great Fire" by Jim Murphy
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.
