Reeducating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Giving someone new training or instruction to alter their behavior or level of understanding
2. Teaching again in order to modify habits, skills, or comprehension
3. Retraining a person to change how they think or act through education

Etymology: "Reeducating" is the present participle of "reeducate," which is simply the prefix "re-" (meaning "again") attached to "educate." The more interesting story lies in the second half. "Educate" comes from Latin "educare," meaning "to rear, bring up, train," and it is related to "educere," "to lead out" or "draw forth." The original idea was less about cramming facts into a student and more about drawing out what was already there, or nurturing a young person toward maturity. Because "reeducate" is built from "re-" plus "educate" in English, its sense follows directly from those parts: to rear or train someone a second time. Its meaning has therefore stayed close to the original notion of guiding a person's development, now applied to correcting habits, skills, or understanding that have gone wrong or need updating.

Synonyms: retraining, reforming, retraining, rehabilitating, educating again

Antonyms: misleading, neglecting, abandoning, ignoring, diseducating