Refigure

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To figure again or anew. transitive

    "The hookworm campaign […] was far more effective in creating and legitimating powerful new social boundaries. Through the rhetoric of the hookworm campaign, poor white trash were partially refigured as pure white Americans, a group that deserved higher status and greater prestige than that accorded to southern blacks."

  2. 2
    To duplicate. transitive

    "Ten times thyself were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee ..."

  3. 3
    To restore the parabolic figure of, as of a parabolic mirror. transitive

Example

More examples

"The hookworm campaign […] was far more effective in creating and legitimating powerful new social boundaries. Through the rhetoric of the hookworm campaign, poor white trash were partially refigured as pure white Americans, a group that deserved higher status and greater prestige than that accorded to southern blacks."

Etymology

From re- + figure.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.