KJV Dictionary Definition: reform

reform

REFORM', v.t. L. reformo; re and formo, to form.

1. To change from worse to better; to amend; to correct; to restore to a former good state, or to bring from a bad to a good state; as, to reform a profligate man; to reform corrupt manners or morals.

The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age, but that of a good one will not reform it.

2. To change from bad to good; to remove that which is bad or corrupt; as, to reform abuses; to reform the vices of the age.

REFORM', v.i. To abandon that which is evil or corrupt, and return to a good state; to be amended or corrected. A man of settled habits of vice will seldom reform.

reformation

REF'ORMATION, n.

1. The act of reforming; correction or amendment of life, manners, or of any thing vicious or corrupt; as the reformation of manners; reformation of the age; reformation of abuses.

Satire lashes vice into reformation.

2. By way of eminence, the change of religion from the corruptions of popery to its primitive purity, begun by Luther, A.D. 1517.

reformed

REFORM'ED, pp. Corrected; amended; restored to a good state; as a reformed profligate; the reformed church.

reformer

REFORM'ER, n.

1. One who effects a reformation or amendment; as a reformer of manners or of abuses.

2. One of those who commenced the reformation of religion from popish corruption; as Luther, Melancthon, Zuinglius and Calvin.

reforming

REFORM'ING, ppr. Correcting what is wrong; amending; restoring to a good state.

Definitions from Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828.
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