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:
“I feel too much pain. How does one reconstruct a life lost?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
Scientists must compare known fossils, determine how individual bones connected, and reconstruct missing portions using evidence from related animals.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 5, 2026
Researchers must distinguish between these possibilities before using fossil marks to reconstruct prehistoric behavior or ecological relationships.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 5, 2026
If AI models can generate scientific and mathematical breakthroughs but cannot explain their own reasoning in ways humans can understand, we might remain unable to reconstruct the intellectual path by which those answers were reached.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
In the 1950s, Ed Lewis, a fruit fly geneticist at Caltech, began to reconstruct the formation of fruit fly embryos.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The life Mr. Meyer reconstructs reads as a sustained revolt against the power of categories to diminish.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
The team made the discovery using a new method that examines hundreds of present-day human genomes and reconstructs ancient genealogical connections among their DNA sequences.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026
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
Besides Sabri, actors play Ghofrane and Rahma, the daughters who left, as Ben Hania reconstructs the family’s past in search for clues for their radicalization.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2024
The body dissolves, and is transformed; the soul transmigrates, and, drawing round itself atom to atom, it reconstructs for itself a new body.
From The Heroic Enthusiasts (Gli Eroici Furori) Part the First An Ethical Poem by L. Williams
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
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
The researchers then reconstructed the quantum states directly.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 15, 2026
Put it down to years of hunting, or maybe my reconstructed ear does work a little better than anyone intended.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
Like most whodunits, this one is about reconstructing past events.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
They then spent a further three years documenting and reconstructing the T. rex back in the lab.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
By reconstructing the chemical evolution of Etna's lava and comparing it with experimental data, they found that the composition of the volcano's magma has remained remarkably stable despite changes in the surrounding tectonic environment.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 10, 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
“You’re educated, and I’m so tired of people touching iron and tipping their beer as soon as I mention the Chandrian. I’m just reconstructing a story, not meddling with dark arts.”
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
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.
