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
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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
Penelope Green, New York Times, 24 May 2024
And its productions also traveled to prisons, reformatories, settlement houses and psychiatric hospitals.
—Adam Hochschild, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 Oct. 2023
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
Lucien turned himself in the next day and served two years for manslaughter in a reformatory.
—Penelope Green, New York Times, 24 May 2024
And its productions also traveled to prisons, reformatories, settlement houses and psychiatric hospitals.
—Adam Hochschild, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 Oct. 2023
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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When Hattie’s grandson, Elwood Curtis, is unjustly charged with car theft, he’s sent to the Nickel Academy, a brutal reform school based on the real-life Dozier School in Florida where, in 2013, skeletons of Black boys were discovered in unmarked graves.Baz Bamigboye, Deadline, 21 Nov. 2024
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Nickel Boys brings the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two friends surviving a Florida reform school together to the screen.Fred Topel, Deadline, 2 Nov. 2024
Adjective
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Part memoir and part oral history, Let the Record Show is a master class on the utility of anger and a historical corrective to chronicles that depict straight white men as the main heroes of the AIDS crisis.Ruth Madievsky, The Atlantic, 20 Nov. 2024
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As long as there is no evidence that the A/D line is diverging from prices any drops below its WMA or EMA are corrective periods not a change in the major trend.Tom Aspray, Forbes, 4 Nov. 2024
Noun
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This data started to coalesce a week ago as a result of the rarely-dropping god roll combo on the Vesper’s Host dungeon’s new grenade launcher.Paul Tassi, Forbes, 25 Oct. 2024
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Trending Boring dungeon design aside, Metaphor ReFantazio is a stellar achievement.Josh Broadwell, Rolling Stone, 11 Oct. 2024
Noun
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Much of the interior remains unchanged from its time as a watch training school.Anthony DeMarco, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2024
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Metzger ended up in Leeds in an ORT training school learning woodworking and eventually found work in a furniture factory outside Leeds in the country on the Harwood Estate, before moving to a radical Marxist commune in Bristol where Metzger found the politics too extreme.Tom Teicholz, Forbes, 21 Oct. 2024
Noun
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Now that stores only sell clothes that have been slapped together from plastic sheeting and surgical staples in fast-fashion gulags, what used to be considered basic construction — stuff like finished seams and sturdy material — becomes downright luxurious in comparison.Alison Willmore, Vulture, 16 July 2024
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Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet Union was a murderous gulag.Bryan C. Donohue, Baltimore Sun, 17 Apr. 2024
Noun
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This godown was an oubliette.Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harper’s Magazine , 7 Dec. 2021
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Let the novel open like an oubliette under your feet.Parul Sehgal, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2019
Noun
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Roberts has rightfully earned his keep and should be appreciated and respected by all.Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 2 Nov. 2024
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Terrifier 3 earned its domestic keep of $18.9 million from 2,514 theaters, while Joker: Folie à Deux’s week two business dropped 81% to $7 million in 4,102 theaters.Tim Lammers, Forbes, 14 Oct. 2024
Thesaurus Entries Near reformatory
Cite this Entry
“Reformatory.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/reformatory. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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