Renatured

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of returning a modified entity to its original state involves redefining its natural attributes
2. A procedure that involves modifying something back to its original condition aims to recover its natural features
3. Returned to a natural state after alteration or processing

Etymology: "Renatured" is the past tense and past participle of "renature," a verb formed by attaching the prefix "re-" (again, back) to "nature." The base word is the key to its meaning: "denature" is the older verb, meaning to alter something's natural properties, and "renature" was coined as its deliberate opposite, to describe restoring a changed substance to its former natural state. The pairing explains the structure. "Denature" already had a long life in chemistry and biology, where it describes altering a protein's shape so that it loses its function, and in the sense of making alcohol undrinkable by adding a poison. "Renature" reverses that process, so a protein that has been unfolded can regain its original folded form. The word is thus defined less by a surprising history than by its precise place in a matched pair, with the prefix "re-" doing the work of undoing.