reinforcement

American  

[ree-in-fawrs-muhnt, -fohrs-] / ˌri ɪnˈfɔrs mənt, -ˈfoʊrs- /

noun

• reinforcements
  plural

1. the act of reinforcing.

2. the state of being reinforced.

3. something that reinforces or strengthens.

4. Often reinforcements. an additional supply of personnel, ships, aircraft, etc., for a military force.

5. a system of steel bars, strands, wires, or mesh for absorbing the tensile and shearing stresses in concrete work.

6. Psychology.

   1. a procedure, as a reward or punishment, that alters a response to a stimulus.

   2. the act of reinforcing a response.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonreinforcement
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• reinforcements
  plural

Etymology

Origin of reinforcement

First recorded in 1600–10; reinforce + -ment

Explanation

Reinforcement is a way to learn and remember things, like a student who repeats the facts he has studied for a test over and over, or the ways we praise children when they share their toys or say "please" and "thank you" — reinforcement of the good manners we want them to use. You’ll often hear the word reinforcement used in relation to a building or other structure that gets additional mechanical support, but the word can be used in a broader sense as well. In addition to strengthening walls, reinforcement can refer to the strengthening or propping up of an argument or a particular point of view. For example, if you show up in class every day and ask questions, that adds reinforcement to the notion that you’re a diligent student.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

reinforcement reinforcements

The WHO and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention welcomed the allocation, describing it as a vital reinforcement of the response.

From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026

This selective reinforcement produces a current that is concentrated into a particular direction rather than spreading evenly through the material.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 28, 2026

“Customers are looking for AI infrastructure that is optimized for a wide range of workloads, from training and inference to data preparation, search, and reinforcement learning,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a release.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026

During post-training—when the model is taught how to behave—Thinking Machines used a combination of distillation, which relies on other AI models, and its own reinforcement learning process.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

Although we need reinforcement, the recruits give us almost more trouble than they are worth.

From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque

With Ibrahima Konate leaving for Real Madrid in the summer, Virgil van Dijk is Liverpool's only fit senior centre-back, making the need for reinforcements increasingly obvious.

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026

If something needs solving, then it is a problem and Liverpool require reinforcements at the back.

From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026

"We got reinforcements from the armed forces and the Special Task Force commandos to restore order and send the inmates back to their cells," Medawatte told reporters outside the prison.

From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026

Experts familiar with Morocco's security apparatus expressed puzzlement at the absence of reinforcements from the police or the powerful military, even as migrants began pouring into Fnideq at the start of the week.

From Barron's ● Aug. 1, 2026

The Germans, meanwhile, were so afraid of catching up with their drifting gas that they advanced only a couple of miles before they were stopped by Allied reinforcements.

From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman

Related Words

• aid