retrain
Americanverb (used with object)
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retrains,
present (3rd person singular)
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retrained,
past participle, past
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retraining
present participle
verb (used without object)
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retrains,
present (3rd person singular)
-
retrained,
past participle, past
-
retraining
present participle
verb
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(tr) to teach (someone) a new skill so that he or she can do a job or find employment
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(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
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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:
The government needed to be ready to help retrain service sector workers, he argued, but also to bring in measures to "slow down the transition slightly" to keep people in their jobs.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
“To retrain old military personnel is much harder than to recruit this new 2.5% of the army from civilians,” Maj.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
McDonald’s said it would work with franchisees to get them on board and would launch a program in October to retrain its U.S. restaurant crews.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026
With China's economy slowing and well-paying jobs in traditional sectors harder to come by, many blue-collar workers like Zhang are looking to retrain.
From Barron's ● Jul. 2, 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
Building a new kind of product, after all, requires billions in investment in new plants, new engineering, new or retrained workers—for a product that companies had seen no signal from the public that it wanted.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
She retrained after forming a close relationship with her own midwife during the birth of her son.
From BBC ● Apr. 23, 2026
“I’m hoping that the institute will change and that they’ve retrained the officers as to when they can use force, so this kind of stuff doesn’t happen.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 28, 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
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
The results showed a meaningful advantage for those who received personalized gait retraining.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 11, 2026
Whether gait retraining can actually delay or prevent knee replacement remains unknown.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 11, 2026
Those areas include productivity and the retraining of employees, energy and grid infrastructure and capital-heavy to capital-light transitions.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026
It proposed instead to "demonstrate how different life and career choices may affect repayment trajectories", including salary progression, retraining, part-time work, and career breaks.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
They have taken retraining classes for jobs that pay half their old wages.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
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