Reinstatement

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of returning someone or something to a former status, condition, or position
2. A process in which a previous state or role is restored after it was lost or removed
3. The action of placing back into the original or rightful place or condition

Etymology: "Reinstatement" is a plain English formation: the verb "reinstate" with the suffix "-ment" added. The verb itself is built from "re-", meaning again, and "instate", which is "in-" plus "state". The "state" element comes from Latin "status", a standing or condition, and reached English through Old French "estat" and Middle English "stat". "Instate" put someone or something into a position or condition, and adding "re-" reversed the loss, so the sense of restoring a lost position is already there in the verb before the noun is formed. The suffix does the same work it does in words like "payment" or "arrangement": it turns the action of the verb into a noun naming the process. Its own ancestry runs back through Latin "-mentum", a marker of means or result, and Old French "-ment" came into Middle English that way. So the noun names the act of putting a lost position or status back again, and the word's core idea, a standing or condition, is the Latin "status" that sits at the heart of "state" itself.

Synonyms: restoration, reestablishment, return

Antonyms: dismissal, removal