rehab
Americannoun
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rehabs
plural
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rehabilitation, especially a program or facility for treating persons addicted to drugs or alcohol or recovering from certain medical conditions.
He's been sober since coming out of rehab.
She checked into rehab after suffering a stroke.
-
a rehabilitated building.
adjective
verb (used with object)
noun
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short for rehabilitation
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treatment for drink or drug addiction
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informal short for Rehabilitation Department
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of rehab
By shortening
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:
For decades, Baltimore owed the intractability of its vacant housing crisis to simple economics: It cost more to rehab a vacant home than that renovated home could be sold for.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
“I don’t know if it’s just, you want to be perfect, you’re trying to get your feet under you, you’ve been in rehab mode a lot,” Roberts said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 9, 2026
With this much time off, however, Ohtani will need to build back up to a starter’s workload without the benefit of a rehab assignment, similar to what he did last season.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026
After months of hospitalization and rehab, Reile slid into a deep depression.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
“She hit her head, that’s all. She had a concussion. And then my dad took her to rehab in Palm Springs and moved back in with us.”
From "Far from the Tree" by Robin Benway
And even when patients do spend the time and money to enter treatment, rehabs fail them.
From Slate ● Dec. 19, 2025
In court filings, these rehabs generally blame the insurers for trying to get out of paying for legitimate treatment by filing lawsuits.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
“Samples from small mammals are rolling in now and things at the wildlife rehabs pick up substantially in spring,” he says.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 29, 2024
“It’s more so understanding that it doesn’t turn off when you get off the football field,” said Ulofoshio, when asked what he learned through rigorous rehabs.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 18, 2023
I wondered if she was the right person for the job: she seemed awfully enamored of the rehabs that Debra and her crew had performed.
From Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
“We had a vision of how these houses could be rehabbed, and we looked at the price tags, did the math and figured we could make a 30% to 40% return on our investment.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 10, 2025
Kids scrambled up rehabbed trails, and some danced the schuhplattler, a Bavarian folk dance with lots of foot stomping and thigh and foot slapping.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2025
Many of the men being rehabbed by the right, though, don’t meet this standard.
From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2025
In one sequence, marine biologists lovingly restore a rehabbed coral polyp to a reef.
From New York Times ● Apr. 21, 2024
“Every summer the other whatnots will be sent away for updating, and the storage areas will be rehabbed in their absence,” the woman said.
From "The School for Whatnots" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Carlos Alcaraz will not defend his French Open title because of a wrist injury, while world number seven Taylor Fritz has been resting and rehabbing a long-term knee problem since March.
From BBC ● May 6, 2026
That’s a frightening thing, considering Paramount has already announced plans to continue rehabbing disgraced “Melania” director Brett Ratner’s career with a new “Rush Hour” film.
From Salon ● Mar. 6, 2026
He told reporters that he and Pelicans trainer Daniel Bove had come up with a strategy to address his fitness while rehabbing his hamstring and that he stuck to it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 4, 2026
Marquez spent the winter rehabbing from his latest injury and he admitted that he was not quite back to full fitness in Malaysia.
From Barron's ● Feb. 25, 2026
It was a temporary gig, and after five months he moved on to rehabbing homes in the city—another temporary job.
From "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates" by Wes Moore
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.
