reclaim Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb claim back
    repossess.
  2. verb reuse (materials from waste products)
    recover.
  3. verb bring, lead, or force to abandon a wrong or evil course of life, conduct, and adopt a right one
    regenerate; rectify; reform.
    • The Church reformed me
    • reform your conduct
  4. verb make useful again; transform from a useless or uncultivated state
    • The people reclaimed the marshes
  5. verb overcome the wildness of; make docile and tractable
    domesticize; domesticise; tame; domesticate.
    • He tames lions for the circus
    • reclaim falcons

WordNet

Re*claim" transitive verb
Definitions
  1. To claim back; to demand the return of as a right; to attempt to recover possession of.
    A tract of land [Holland] snatched from an element perpetually reclaiming its prior occupancy. W. Coxe.
Re*claim" transitive verb
Etymology
F. réclamer, L. reclamare, reclamatum, to cry out against; pref. re- re- + clamare to call or cry aloud. See Claim.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Reclaimed ; present participle & verbal noun Reclaiming
Definitions
  1. To call back, as a hawk to the wrist in falconry, by a certain customary call. Chaucer.
  2. To call back from flight or disorderly action; to call to, for the purpose of subduing or quieting.
    The headstrong horses hurried Octavius . . . along, and were deaf to his reclaiming them. Dryden.
  3. To reduce from a wild to a tamed state; to bring under discipline; -- said especially of birds trained for the chase, but also of other animals. "An eagle well reclaimed." Dryden.
  4. Hence: To reduce to a desired state by discipline, labor, cultivation, or the like; to rescue from being wild, desert, waste, submerged, or the like; as, to reclaim wild land, overflowed land, etc.
  5. To call back to rectitude from moral wandering or transgression; to draw back to correct deportment or course of life; to reform.
    It is the intention of Providence, in all the various expressions of his goodness, to reclaim mankind. Rogers.
  6. To correct; to reform; -- said of things. Obs.
    Your error, in time reclaimed, will be venial. Sir E. Hoby.
  7. To exclaim against; to gainsay. Obs. Fuller. Syn. -- To reform; recover; restore; amend; correct.
Re*claim" intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To cry out in opposition or contradiction; to exclaim against anything; to contradict; to take exceptions.
    Scripture reclaims, and the whole Catholic church reclaims, and Christian ears would not hear it. Waterland.
    At a later period Grote reclaimed strongly against Mill's setting Whately above Hamilton. Bain.
  2. To bring anyone back from evil courses; to reform.
    They, hardened more by what might most reclaim, Grieving to see his glory . . . took envy. Milton.
  3. To draw back; to give way. R. & Obs. Spenser.
Re*claim" noun
Definitions
  1. The act of reclaiming, or the state of being reclaimed; reclamation; recovery. Obs.

Webster 1913