Reshape

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To alter the shape or form of something by molding, carving, or reconfiguring its structure
2. To modify the physical outline or contour of an object to a different design or arrangement
3. To give a new form or appearance to a thing by changing its existing shape or structure

Etymology: The word is a plain compound: the prefix "re-", meaning "again" or "anew", joined to "shape". Its history therefore runs through the older word "shape" rather than through any separate coinage. "Shape" traces back to Old English "ġesċeapu" and its verb "ġesċeapian", forms that made their way into Middle English as "schape", and the modern spelling settled over the following centuries. The prefix has a longer and more tangled road. "Re-" descends from Latin "re-", which goes back to a Proto-Italic root, and it reached English through Old French "re-", which carried the same sense of repetition or backward motion. Middle English absorbed the prefix in this way, and English later attached it freely to native words, so "reshape" is a combination of a Latin-derived prefix with a Germanic base, a pairing typical of English word-building.

Synonyms: reform, restructure, remold

Antonyms: maintain, preserve