reinforce
Americanverb (used with object)
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reinforces,
present (3rd person singular)
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reinforced,
past participle, past
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reinforcing
present participle
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to strengthen with some added piece, support, or material.
to reinforce a wall.
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to strengthen (a military force) with additional personnel, ships, or aircraft.
to reinforce a garrison.
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to strengthen; make more forcible or effective.
to reinforce efforts.
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to augment; increase.
to reinforce a supply.
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Psychology. to strengthen the probability of (a response to a given stimulus) by giving or withholding a reward.
noun
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something that reinforces.
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a metal band on the rear part of the bore of a gun, where the explosion occurs.
verb
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to give added strength or support to
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to give added emphasis to; stress, support, or increase
his rudeness reinforced my determination
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to give added support to (a military force) by providing more men, supplies, etc
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psychol to reward an action or response of (a human or animal) so that it becomes more likely to occur again
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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reinforcesimple
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reinforcessimple
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have reinforcedperfect
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has reinforcedperfect
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am reinforcingprogressive
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are reinforcingprogressive
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is reinforcingprogressive
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have been reinforcingperfect progressive
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has been reinforcingperfect progressive
Past
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reinforcedsimple
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had reinforcedperfect
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was reinforcingprogressive
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were reinforcingprogressive
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had been reinforcingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of reinforce
First recorded in 1590–1600; re- + inforce, alteration of enforce
Explanation
To reinforce means to make stronger. You can reinforce your roof by putting some extra supports under it. Besides a physical structure, there are many things you can reinforce. If you want to reinforce a message, you can say it louder, rephrase and repeat it or give examples of what you expect. You use dog biscuits to reinforce certain behaviors in your dog. Bad experiences will reinforce your fears, good ones your hopes. And when military leaders reinforce their troops, they send additional soldiers to the front.
Vocabulary lists containing reinforce
The SAT: Language of the Test, List 2
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The Language of Standardized Tests, List 2
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The ACT: The Language of the Test, List 2
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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:
But the emphasis is on everyone to chip in and I would also reinforce one of the points I made in this column last season, about the importance of defending properly too.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
Dell Technologies and HPE stocks are leading the S&P 500 higher as Oracle’s massive spending plans reinforce optimism about demand for AI data-center hardware.
From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026
Living in that type of environment could then reinforce or further shape the same personality trait.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 8, 2026
They had to reinforce the floor of their Chicago apartment to support the pair’s weight.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
The thing is, the information that comes in may not be crucial at all; it may actually be irrelevant, spam, but, weirdly, that seems to reinforce the compulsion to answer the device.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
Harbor resonance, in which the shape of a basin reinforces the water's oscillations, helped explain why neighboring ports experienced different effects.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 10, 2026
“These appointments are consistent with the deliberate, multiyear transitions that have shaped previous leadership changes across the platform. It also reinforces CVC’s ongoing strategic focus on performance,” the company said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
But the judge ruled that "far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness" of her conviction.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
Or, more realistically, a positive share-price reaction to Nvidia earnings reinforces investors’ faith in the robustness of the artificial-intelligence trade.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 24, 2026
This visible evidence of political centralization that the kofun provide reinforces the accounts of Kofun era Japanese emperors written down much later in Japanese and Korean chronicles.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
That’s an area reinforced by other support measures, including the 200-day moving average and the median historical pullback of roughly 7%.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026
“That sort of reinforced his fear that he had to be twice as good to get half the chance,” said Ward, the co-author of Pride’s biography.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2026
The findings also reinforced the important role that a person's environment plays in shaping personality.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 8, 2026
Bassam al-Assaf has installed a long barbed-wire fence around the compound and reinforced the school gates, to try and reassure parents.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
The local beer loyalties of individual German drinkers are reinforced by German laws that make it hard for foreign beers to compete in the German market.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
That could help justify Gap’s new products to consumers while reinforcing what the brand stands for.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
At the same time, global yields are rising and reinforcing the move.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026
The discoveries are also reinforcing the importance of the Lake Turkana region as one of the world's richest areas for studying human evolution.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
"This is a clear example of how climate change is intensifying heat extremes, with heat and drought increasingly reinforcing one another," said Samantha Burgess from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates Copernicus.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
Union soldiers are digging trenches and fortifications along the road and reinforcing them with fallen trees and fence rails to protect themselves from rebel bullets.
From "Lincoln's Last Days: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever" by Bill O'Reilly
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.
