Renaturing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Returning something altered or degraded back to its original natural condition or state
2. The process of bringing an environment or object back to its untouched or natural form
3. Reinstating the natural qualities or characteristics of a place or thing after change or damage

Etymology: "Renaturing" is the present participle and gerund of "renature", a verb formed by attaching the prefix "re-" (again, back) to "nature". The base verb was coined as a deliberate counterpart to "denature", which means to alter something so that it loses its natural properties. Where "denature" describes stripping away a substance's original character, "renature" describes restoring it, so the pair works as a matched set: one undoes nature, the other returns it. The logic of the pair is easiest to see in its practical settings. Chemists and biologists use "denature" for proteins that lose their folded structure through heat or chemicals, and the reverse process, in which a molecule regains its original shape, is what "renature" names. The same contrast has been carried over to ecology and land management, where restoring a damaged river or landscape to something like its former state is described in the same vocabulary.

Synonyms: restoring, reviving, rehabilitating