verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of reformulate
Explanation
To reformulate is to rework or improve an original plan. If your bottle rocket goes off course, crashing into your kitchen window, you will want to reformulate the flight plans before you launch it again. Fortunately for English speakers, there are a lot of linguistic opportunities for second chances! Reformulate is one of those words that give you a chance to improve upon a first try. Words in this “do-over” family include revise, rework, and redevelop; notice the re in all of these words, from the Latin “again” or “back.” Reformulate is usually used for a formula, theory, or plan.
Vocabulary lists containing reformulate
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:
Producers would be expected to reformulate their products, lowering the sugar content, or reduce portion sizes in response to the tax change, the government said.
From BBC ● Nov. 25, 2025
They are trying to reformulate their products by doing things like adding more protein and taking out artificial colors and sweeteners.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2025
While PepsiCo wants to reformulate Lay’s to lean more on natural ingredients, it wants to maintain the chips’ previous taste and appearance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
Food and drug manufacturers who use Red No. 3 in their products will have until January 15, 2027, or January 18, 2028, respectively, to reformulate their products.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2025
This approach led Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, and Paul Dirac in the 1920s to reformulate mechanics into a new theory called quantum mechanics, based on the uncertainty principle.
From "A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays" by Stephen Hawking
"Since 2017, we have reformulated over 3,000 recipes and taken out 160 additives… Last year alone, we re-worked the formulations of around 300 products," the company said in a statement.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
At the time, he was making the rounds promoting his campaign for Calvin Klein’s Eternity fragrance, which had been reformulated to reflect modern tastes.
From Salon ● May 27, 2026
Rather than attempting to directly calculate the full structure of the material, the team reformulated the challenge using methods similar to those used by quantum computers.
From Science Daily ● May 13, 2026
Look at trading for a key commodity with a heinous name: RBOB, short for reformulated gasoline blendstock for oxygenate blending.
From Barron's ● Mar. 20, 2026
Thus, questions about inequality in the modern world can be reformulated as follows.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Over the past few years, higher prices have pushed chocolatiers to seek alternatives, including reformulating recipes to fill chocolate with ingredients other than cocoa, creating substitutes or developing cocoa in a lab.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
"Our findings show that reformulating food products, even with small, invisible changes, can have a significant impact on public health."
From Science Daily ● Jan. 31, 2026
To compensate for higher cocoa prices, chocolate manufacturers have been reformulating recipes, repackaging products, and yes, raising prices.
From Barron's ● Oct. 24, 2025
"We are reformulating our cereals served in schools to not include FD&C colours by the 2026-27 school year," says a spokesperson for WK Kellogg, the company behind Kellogg's.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2025
His work is neither a translation nor a mere paraphrase; it is a reformulating of Shakespeare into a new work of art.
From An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway by Ruud, Martin Brown
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.
