retrain
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
-
(tr) to teach (someone) a new skill so that he or she can do a job or find employment
-
(intr) to learn a new skill with a view to doing a job or finding employment
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
retrainsimple
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retrainssimple
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have retrainedperfect
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has retrainedperfect
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am retrainingprogressive
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are retrainingprogressive
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is retrainingprogressive
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have been retrainingperfect progressive
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has been retrainingperfect progressive
Past
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retrainedsimple
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had retrainedperfect
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was retrainingprogressive
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were retrainingprogressive
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had been retrainingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of retrain
Explanation
To retrain is to teach (or to learn) all new information and skills. Once your dog retires from guarding sheep, you can retrain her to be a visiting therapy dog in nursing homes. When someone loses a job in one industry, a state employment agency can often help to retrain them for new kinds of work. A mill worker might retrain to be a computer programmer, for example. The verb retrain has the "again" prefix re- added to train, "to discipline or teach," a definition that grew out of the meaning "manipulate and shape," the way a gardener trains a vine to grow up an arbor.
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:
She said she had now been offered a home by Liverpool City Council and hoped to retrain as a Polish interpreter, having previously worked as a property manager.
From BBC ● May 20, 2026
He was the first fisherman to retrain as an environmental defender under a pioneering project to replenish the Caribbean coral ecosystem.
From Barron's ● May 7, 2026
“If they were under that umbrella,” he said, “we could take them off the field, maybe retrain them a little bit, get them back up to speed.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2026
It may be that you ultimately decide to retrain for another profession.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 9, 2026
They loved it, hit it like wolves, and the ravens would have to move off, start over and retrain them.
From This Side of Wild by Gary Paulsen
Aadil Qureshi, CEO of Heat Geek, which retrains heating engineers to install heat pumps, said it was the right decision and a refocus on green tech was better value for government money.
From BBC ● Jan. 20, 2026
“There is a subtle difference between a rule that retrains NIL compensation and a rule that limits one’s potential to negotiate a NIL agreement,” the judge wrote.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2025
Adecco, which supplies temporary staff and retrains workers as well as finding positions for highly skilled workers, proposed a dividend of 2.50 euros, the same level as in 2020.
From Reuters ● Feb. 24, 2022
“Epic proved at trial that Apple retrains trade...by contractually requiring developers to exclusively use Apple’s App Store to distribute apps and Apple’s IAP for payments for digital content within apps,” the filing reads.
From The Verge ● Jan. 20, 2022
A portraitist retrains his sights on his earlier, broader artistic goals, with sometimes magical results.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 7, 2018
Monahan has retrained her virtual substitute about her forthcoming book and other professional knowledge.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
A former lawyer who had retrained as a baker at a trendy cafe in the Black Sea city, he joined the Ukrainian army a year later.
From Barron's ● Feb. 22, 2026
When factories automated in the 1990s, an assembly-line employee could be retrained as an office worker.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026
According to the deal, the algorithm will be retrained on US user data only, which will be protected to meet American regulations.
From BBC ● Jan. 23, 2026
Natasha Meklin, a navigator who’d retrained as a pilot, was flying one of her first combat missions at the controls of her Po-2, with Lida Loshmanova as her navigator.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
For the past three years, the French group's subsidiary has been funding and organising retraining programs.
From Barron's ● Jul. 17, 2026
Meanwhile, the Austrian plant that’s home to Sony’s disc-making operations has already said it will be retraining its employees to craft microlenses for car lights, instead of for gaming hardware.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026
Organizing workforce policy around displacement measures would likely expand bureaucracy and tie up resources in tracking layoffs, monitoring “AI risk” and subsidizing retraining.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
The AI boom might also displace workers or require the retraining of recent college graduates.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 5, 2026
They have taken retraining classes for jobs that pay half their old wages.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
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.
