Reenacts

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Portrays a past event by acting it out again, often to illustrate or remember it
2. Acts out a previous occurrence to recreate the experience for an audience or study
3. Replicates a historical or significant event through performance to visualize what happened

Etymology: The word is an inflected form, the third-person singular present of "reenact", so it is the verb itself with an "-s" added for a subject like "he" or "she". The base verb is simply "re-" ("again") joined to "enact", meaning to perform or act something out. Taken together, "reenact" means to act something out again, usually a past event. "Enact" has a longer ancestry than its parts suggest. It came into English from Old French, which had borrowed the root from Latin, and the Latin prefix "re-" has been an English building block for centuries. The combination "reenact" was formed in English by attaching that prefix to the existing verb, so it is a straightforward compound rather than a word with a dramatic backstory. The sense has stayed close to its origin. Where "enact" once meant putting a law or a play into effect, "reenact" keeps that idea of making something happen once more, whether a battle, a crime or a historical scene.

Synonyms: recreates, replicates

Antonyms: ignores, forgets