verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To format anew or again, generally erasing a previous format.

   "We had to reformat the computer's hard disk to get rid of the virus."

Synonyms

All synonyms

entitizeformatformat

Example

More examples

"Why don't we just reformat the hard disk? You've been having a lot of trouble with it."

Etymology

From re- + format.

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