as in reformative
serving to raise or adjust something to some standard or proper condition
the belief that manual labor was a reformatory experience for convicted felons, who would learn the value of hard work
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as in reform school
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of reformatory
JSTOR Daily, 24 June 2024
His mother sent him to the Élan School in Maine, a reformatory boarding institution with extreme forms of discipline, including shouting sessions and boxing matches, that attracted widespread criticism and that led to the school’s closing in 2011.
—Alex Traub, New York Times, 7 Mar. 2024
Samantha Bergeson, IndieWire, 13 Dec. 2024
On the cusp of college, he’s instead sentenced to time at a notorious reformatory.
—Patrick Hipes, Deadline, 2 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for reformatory
Adjective
While Spanish Catholicism and reformatory Protestantism favored black clothing, much of the Renaissance happened in an explosion of color.
—JSTOR Daily, 24 June 2024
His mother sent him to the Élan School in Maine, a reformatory boarding institution with extreme forms of discipline, including shouting sessions and boxing matches, that attracted widespread criticism and that led to the school’s closing in 2011.
—Alex Traub, New York Times, 7 Mar. 2024
Noun
Bearing the brunt of an innocent misstep, he’s sentenced to the netherworld of Nickel Academy, a brutal reformatory sunk deep in the Jim Crow South.
—Samantha Bergeson, IndieWire, 13 Dec. 2024
On the cusp of college, he’s instead sentenced to time at a notorious reformatory.
—Patrick Hipes, Deadline, 2 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for reformatory
Recent Examples of Synonyms for reformatory
Adjective
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Fifty-five years after Martin Luther King's death, African Americans continue to proudly honor his reformative legacy in Phoenix.—
The Arizona Republic,
The Arizona Republic,
14 Jan. 2024
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While the idea of hiring actors might raise some eyebrows, acting and artistry can be an important step in the reformative process, and Hemsworth suggested that the actors’ real-life experiences helped shape their on-screen characters.—
Wesley Stenzel,
EW.com,
5 Dec. 2023
Noun
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The film, an adaptation of a novel of the same name by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead, is a portrait of two Black boys who are sent to a violent reform school closely modeled on Dozier.—
Kalhan Rosenblatt,
NBC News,
26 Feb. 2025
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Nickel Boys is a unique screen adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning historical novel based on real-life abusive reform schools in America.—
Tommy McArdle,
People.com,
8 Feb. 2025
Adjective
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The memos sometimes validated an immigrant’s account of individual abuse, or detailed systemic issues and corrective action at detention centers.—
Mel Leonor Barclay,
Them.,
15 Apr. 2025
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Blue Origin spaceflights with human aboard then resumed in May 2024 after the Federal Aviation Administration closed its investigation and ordered the company to make 21 corrective actions.—
Eric Lagatta,
USA Today,
12 Apr. 2025
Noun
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After the meal, the group let loose and danced in the castle's dungeon.—
Erin Clack,
People.com,
31 Mar. 2025
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Rather than a glass coffin, the dwarfs place the princess on a stone slab adorned with flowers in the middle of the woods, keeping vigil until Jonathan shows up one day, having escaped the Queen’s dungeon.—
Patrick Ryan,
USA TODAY,
21 Mar. 2025
Noun
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The facility has an on-site training school, which welcomes groups of 10 apprentices at a time and also provides on-the-job training for existing employees, who are 82 percent female and range in age from 18 to 65.—
Joelle Diderich,
Footwear News,
2 Apr. 2025
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For decades, advocates for the disabled have called for closing the training school.—
Christopher Keating,
Hartford Courant,
30 Mar. 2025
Noun
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What kind of people approve of a government that extra-judicially kidnaps innocents and renders them into the hands of a foreign gulag—and then hides behind that government when ordered by an American court to bring them back?—
Matt Robison,
MSNBC Newsweek,
16 Apr. 2025
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One man who was a dissident imprisoned in a Soviet gulag—future Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky—had this to say about hearing of Reagan's description of the Soviet Union as an evil empire.—
Josh Hammer,
Newsweek,
19 Mar. 2025
Noun
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One is a stony oubliette with crystals growing out of the walls.—
Erin Alberty,
Axios,
6 Jan. 2025
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One is a stony oubliette with crystals growing out of the walls.—
Erin Alberty,
Axios,
6 Jan. 2025
Noun
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Gurriel will have to earn his keep by showing in April’s real games that the exhibitions of March were not a mirage.—
Kevin Acee,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
23 Mar. 2025
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A week after the adoption event, the couple drove to his foster carer's house to take Fletcher home for keeps.—
Matt Robison,
Newsweek,
24 Feb. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Reformatory.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/reformatory. Accessed 23 Apr. 2025.
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