verbverb: rehabilitate; 3rd person present: rehabilitates; past tense: rehabilitated; past participle: rehabilitated; gerund or present participle: rehabilitating
- restore (someone) to health or normal life by training and therapy after imprisonment, addiction, or illness.”helping to rehabilitate former criminals”Similar:restore to health/normalityreintegratereadaptretrainrehabreinstatereinstallrestorebring backre-establishpardonabsolveexonerateexculpateforgive
- restore (someone) to former privileges or reputation after a period of disfavour.”with the fall of the government many former dissidents were rehabilitated”
- return (something, especially a building or environmental feature) to its former condition.”the campaign aims to rehabilitate the river’s flood plain”Similar:reconditionrestorerenewrenovaterefurbishrevampmake overmake fit for habitation/useoverhauldevelopredevelopconvertrebuildreconstructremodelredecoratebrighten upfreshen upspruce upimproveupgraderefitfix upre-equipmodernizeupdatebring up to datebring something up to coderehabdo up
Origin
late 16th century (earlier (late 15th century) as rehabilitation ) (in the sense ‘restore to former privileges’): from medieval Latin rehabilitat-, from the verb rehabilitare (see re-, habilitate).