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
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.
And Thursday night’s performance, while not wholly irrelevant, was just another television rerun broadcast to a less-than-mass audience.
From Los Angeles Times • May 15, 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
Double-digit earnings growth and significant hedging by traders could mean a rerun of the rebound seen after last year’s Tariff Tantrum.
From Barron's • Mar. 20, 2026
Whereas when Oregon goes up 34-6 at the half, you’re stuck with that mess, and need to choose between a rerun of “Elf” or actually talking to your family.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 22, 2025
I can’t deny the fact that this class does seem like a bad rerun of Cops, though, and she has the records to prove it.
From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers
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.
