Recalibrate

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To make new adjustments to settings or measurements for accurate results
2. To fine-tune or reset equipment or systems to ensure proper functioning
3. To reconfigure or correct the calibration of devices or processes for precision

Etymology: The verb "recalibrate" is simply "calibrate" with the prefix "re-", meaning "again." "Calibrate" itself comes from "calibre," the width of a gun barrel or the diameter of a bullet, which in turn passed through French and Latin from an older Arabic-influenced source in the Mediterranean trade of guns and measures. The sense of checking an instrument against a standard grew out of that idea of matching a measured size, so that to calibrate is to bring a gauge back into line with a known reference. Recalibrate therefore means to do that adjustment all over again, usually because a device has drifted from its standard. The prefix "re-" is English's ordinary tool for repetition, found in words like "rewrite" and "reheat," and it was attached here to a technical word that had already come to mean measuring against a standard.

Synonyms: readjust, reset, modify, reconfigure, revise

Antonyms: miscalibrate, disarrange, disorganize, confuse, distort