rerun
Americanverb (used with object)
noun
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the act of rerunning.
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a showing of a motion picture or television program after its initial run, usually some months or years later.
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the motion picture or television program being shown again.
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Informal. a person or thing that is merely a restatement or imitation of something familiar; rehash.
The plot is just a rerun of every other spy story.
verb
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to broadcast or put on (a film, play, series, etc) again
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to run (a race, etc) again
noun
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a film, play, series, etc, that is broadcast or put on again; repeat
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a race that is run again
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computing the repeat of a part of a computer program
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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rerunsimple
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rerunssimple
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have rerunperfect
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has rerunperfect
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am rerunningprogressive
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are rerunningprogressive
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is rerunningprogressive
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have been rerunningperfect progressive
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has been rerunningperfect progressive
Past
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reransimple
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had rerunperfect
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was rerunningprogressive
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were rerunningprogressive
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had been rerunningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of rerun
Explanation
When a TV or radio station plays a show again, after its first broadcast, that's a rerun. You may have grown up watching reruns of the shows your parents loved when they were kids. Use rerun as a noun, for the show itself, or a verb, to describe the process of rebroadcasting it: "They rerun this movie every year at Christmas time." When someone used this word in the early nineteenth century, they were talking about races being rerun, or run again. It was first used to mean "television rebroadcast" around 1955.
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:
Barker wisely fashioned “Obsession” as a contemporary movie, taking inspiration from a “Simpsons” rerun and revamping it into something the socially conscious, explainer video-addicted YouTube audience might enjoy.
From Salon ● Jun. 4, 2026
“Least as in least likely to offend the president with the rerun of ‘Comics Unleashed’ from 2007 featuring Paula Poundstone and Andy Dick.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
Mitie is asking the High Court to "set aside" the decision and award the contract to Mitie, or rerun the tendering process, or order the government to pay damages.
From BBC ● Apr. 8, 2026
“The risk of a rerun of last year’s tariff chaos has clearly increased, but the situation is still a long way from reaching that degree of disorder.”
From Barron's ● Jan. 19, 2026
Recently, Kojo had stumbled upon an ancient show called Kojak on some obscure cable rerun channel.
From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein
In its earliest days, TBS aired old movies and comedy reruns, and was also the home of “Captain Planet and the Planeteers,” Turner’s effort to blend his passion for ecological conservation with educational programming.
From Salon ● May 8, 2026
We lived in the missions’ afterglow, with orange-flavored Tang, syndicated “Star Trek” reruns, and “Star Wars” filling in for actual lunar landings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
Flagship shows such as the 7.30 evening current affairs programme and its breakfast shows on Thursday will not go ahead, with reruns, pre-programmed shows and BBC content to plug the gap.
From BBC ● Mar. 24, 2026
Those avocado green appliances, Formica countertops, and linoleum floors were just as crappy as they appear in those sitcom reruns.
From Barron's ● Mar. 14, 2026
The vampire business smacked of Dark Shadows reruns, and I refused to take it seriously.
From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris
Even so, “when he and Russell reran their data set of opinion articles through the current version, the underlying assessments were similar to those in the earlier iteration.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
If you reran the referendum, despite the opinion polls you'd get a very similar result.
From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2023
Kull said that in response to that criticism, they reran the study in 2018 and incorporated those arguments.
From Washington Post ● May 26, 2022
They reran their numbers, and sent over a correction.
From Slate ● Apr. 26, 2019
Times article about the Freedom Writers reran in a New York paper.
From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers
It is hard to imagine a state ordering a rerunning of primaries under new districts to gut old Section 2 districts.
From Slate ● Apr. 29, 2026
It also boasts the hook of reviving proven IP, and though it’s not exactly “Star Trek,” the original ran for nine years and is rerunning still; it has a seat in the collective unconscious.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2024
Once a show reached the 100-episode mark, it could be sold into syndication, filling up daytime programming schedules for local television stations, rerunning on cable networks or outside of the United States.
From Reuters ● May 22, 2023
“There would be a major boycott of TV Land or any network that wanted to start rerunning ‘Cosby,’” he said.
From New York Times ● Jul. 1, 2021
I kept rerunning the dream all day until the coach’s whistle blew and he called “Race-off!” and there I was, heading across the field to the starting line.
From "Crash" by Jerry Spinelli
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.
