Word Finder - reform

definition

The change of something that is defective, broken, inefficient or otherwise negative, in order to correct or improve it

example

A major reform is needed to improve the efficiency in the factory.

definition

To put into a new and improved form or condition; to restore to a former good state, or bring from bad to good; to change from worse to better

example

1909, H. G. Wells, The History of Mr. Polly Chapter 9

definition

To return to a good state; to amend or correct one's own character or habits

example

It is hoped that many criminals, upon being freed, will eventually reform.

definition

To form again or in a new configuration.

example

The regiment reformed after surviving the first attack.

Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep.

This constitutional reform was severely criticized by contemporary political experts.

Consult the literature of history and colonial reform given below.

A number of leading citizens were at once formed into a reform committee.

The reform of the Ottoman government contemplated by the sultan Mahmud II.

He earned the surname of "Pious" by banishing his sisters and others of immoral life from court; by attempting to reform and purify monastic life; and by showing great liberality to the church.

In this way Lanfranc set the seal of intellectual activity on the reform movement of which Bec was the centre.

For an international commission of lawyers he prepared Draft Outlines of an International Code (1872), the submission of which resulted in the organization of the international Association for the Reform and Codification of the Laws of Nations, of which he became president.

In 1877 the provincial deputation was re-established, but it was not until 1895 that the home government attempted, far too late, to enact a series of adequate reform measures, and in November 1897 followed this by a grant of autonomy.

He served as a nominee of the opposition on the committee of twenty-four which was appointed, in the Oxford parliament of that year, to reform the administration.

In 1886 he was made under secretary for foreign affairs; in 1892 he joined the cabinet as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster; in 1894 he was president of the Board of Trade, and acted as chairman of the royal commission on secondary education; and in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet (1905) he was made chief secretary for Ireland; but in February 1907 he was appointed British ambassador at Washington, and took leave of party politics, his last political act being a speech outlining what was then the government scheme for university reform in Dublin - a scheme which was promptly discarded by his successor Mr Birrell.

Recognizing that the true aim of the scheme of church reform brought forward in parliament in 1529 was to put down the only moral force that could withstand the royal will, he energetically opposed the reformation of abuses, which doubtless under other circumstances he would have been the first to accept.

Her caution had its reward, for whatever she did was permanently gained, whereas her successor in his boundless zeal for reform brought his empire to the verge of a general rebellion.

Alexander, overwhelmed with grief, shut himself up in Castle St Angelo, and then declared that the reform of the church would be the sole object of his life henceforth - a resolution which he did not keep. Every effort was made to discover the assassin, and suspicion fell on various highly placed personages.

The Hussites, it was said, would think that the Church was afraid to face them; the laity would accuse the clergy of shirking reform; in short, this failure of the councils would produce disastrous effects.

He was crowned in the Sistine Chapel 3rd March 1878, and at once began a reform of the papal household on austere and economic lines which found little favour with the entourage of the former pope.

Meantime another and more radical reform had been in preparation and was already in progress, namely, the abolition of slavery itself in the foreign possessions of the several states of Europe.

A well-conceived series of measures of reform was accordingly proposed to the colonial authorities.

There were several feeble attempts at further reform, and even abortive projects of emancipation, from the commencement of the 19th century.

Public opinion strongly favoured the projected reform; and even the masters who were opposed to it saw that, if the operation became necessary, it would be more safely for their interests intrusted to the nobles than to the bureaucracy.

While this work of reconstruction was in progress domestic politics in England were convulsed by the tariff reform movement and Mr Chamberlain's resignation.

He advocated the creation of a permanent deliberative imperial council, and favoured preferential trade relations between the United Kingdom and the other members of the empire; and in later years he took an active part in advocating the cause of tariff reform and colonial preference.

At Monroe there is a State Reform School, and at New Orleans a Coloured Industrial Home and School.

There was ostensible government regulation of rates after 1877, but the roads were guaranteed outright against any loss of revenue, and in fact practically nothing was ever done in the way of reform in the Spanish period.

Finally, the government sustains about two score of penal establishments, reform schools, hospitals, dispensaries and asylums, which are scattered all over the island, - every town of any considerable size having one or more of these charities.

Very much was done for public works, sanitation, the reform of administration, civil service and education.

After the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29, a further attempt at reform was initiated by the sultan and his grand vizier, Reshid Pasha.

Until quite recent times the conservative and fanatical spirit of the 'Ulema had been one of the greatest obstacles to progress and reform in a political system in which spiritual and temporal functions were intimately interwoven.

The enthusiastic spirit of reform which heralded the accession of the latter sultan never altogether died out, and from about the last decade of the 19th century has been rapidly and effectively growing in force and in method.

Finally, usage of paper money was restricted to the capital only, and in 1842 this partial reform of the paper currency was followed by a reform of the metallic currency, in the shape of an issue of gold, silver and copper currency of good value.

Reform of this system, and, further, very necessary reforms of the methods of collection of the wines and spirits revenue (which is protection turned upside down, the home-growers being far more heavily taxed than importers), and of the customs (in which almost every possible administrative sin was exemplified), were also undertaken.

The war is blamed by Turkish historians as unjustifiable and untimely, the country needing reform.

A serious outbreak took place at Adrianople in 1804, where 20,000 of the new troops had been sent, ostensibly to put down the revolt in Servia, but really to try to bring about the reform of the European provinces.

Meanwhile the sultan's whole efforts were directed towards the reform of the country; the newly-instituted militia was in every respect a success; it grew in numbers, and hopes were entertained that it would gain popularity.

At this difficult moment the army was obliged to march to the Danube, leaving the government in the hands of men hostile to reform.

The army hereupon retired to Adrianople, and the powerful pasha of Rustchuk, Mustafa Bairakdar, who had distinguished himself by his resistance to the Russians, and who thoroughly shared Selim's desire for reform, was now induced by the many officers who held similar views to march on Constantinople to restore Selim to the throne.

The reform of the army, however, involved the destruction of the Janissaries (q.v.), and though their massacre on the 15th of June left the sultan free to carry out his views with regard to the army, it left him too weak to resist the Russian demands.

The severe crisis through which the Ottoman Empire had passed accentuated the need for strengthening it by a drastic reform of its system.

Though the provisions of the Tanzimat were not fully observed, they afforded convincing proof that reform was entirely practicable in Turkey.

Turkey's progress in the path of reform was viewed with some uneasiness in Russia, the cardinal principle of whose policy since 1829 had been to maintain her own influence at Constantinople by keeping the Otto- Policy man government weak.

It was stipulated that Turkey's promises of reform gave no power the right of interference on behalf of the Christians.

A reform not unworthy of notice was effected by the law promulgated on the 18th of June 1867 whereby foreigners were for the first time allowed to hold landed property throughout the Ottoman Empire (save in the Hejaz) on condition of their being assimilated to Ottoman subjects, i.e.

Measures of reform in Armenia were also provided for, as also the convocation of an international commission for drawing up a reform scheme for the European provinces left to Turkey.

Peace once restored, some attempt was made by Turkey in the direction of complying with her engagements to institute reform.

English officers were engaged to reform the gendarmerie, and judicial inspectors of foreign nationality were to travel through the country to redress abuses.

A serious Bulgarian insurrection in Macedonia in the autumn of 1903 induced Austria and Russia to combine in formulating the Miirzsteg reform programme, tardily consented to by Turkey, by which Austrian and Russian civil agents were appointed to exercise a certain degree of control and supervision over the three vilayets of Salonica, Monastir and Kossovo.

The general reform on which the council had failed to come to an understanding had to be adjourned, and the council contented itself with promulgating, on the 9th of October 1417, the only reforming decrees on which an agreement could be reached.

Ever since Austerlitz the Austrian officers had been labouring to reconstitute and reform their army.

Translated into French, then into Italian (14th century) and into English (r6th century), it was known by Wycliffe and Luther, and was not without an influence on the Reform movement.

By a reform of the censor Appius Claudius in 312 B.C. these non-assidui were admitted into the tribes, and the aerarii as such disappeared.