to reappropriate
1
8.2
- verb
- /ˌriːəˈproʊpriˌeɪt/
:
reapropiar
- Cultural action must permit communities and social groups to rediscover their roots, to reappropriate their history and heritage, in order to allow them, with their identity, to master their own destiny (Wangermee 1988: 43).
Examples
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Celia's informants in Uru and There.com reappropriated items to create their own sporting events, using traffic cones as bowling pins and tent tethers as tightropes.
Blog text (13) -
And much of what we're doing in the phenomenology is reappropriating what is going on through the activity, through the thinking, through the struggle of the past.
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But if we are to "reappropriate" an older idea, we must look at that idea's origin.
Blog text (6) -
Eventually, you should troll the internet for pictures on others' summit posts that you want to reappropriate for your own use.
Blog text (29) -
He is seeking to reappropriate the heroic mode through translation.
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The influence of its university location led Protestant Orthodoxy to reappropriate and emphasize the model and the problems of theology as a theoretical science.
Academic text (1990) -
Is it more like determining whether a given insult is being used as a slur or is being reappropriated?
Blog text (29) -
"In so doing, they selectively reappropriate elements of mainstream culture (Halperin 421), claiming these songs as expressions of gay sensibility, although the songs' composers likely intended to make no such reference.
Academic text (2015) -
The artist decided to reappropriate traditional symbols in her work to challenge their conventional meanings.
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Activists often reappropriate derogatory terms to empower marginalized groups and shift the narrative.
Synonyms
275
3.3
To get something back after losing it
99
3.0
Get back something you had given, lent, or lost
77
4.1
To get back something you lost or gave away
66
4.9
To give something a new meaning that changes how people see it
31
4.6
To take back control of a place after it was lost
19
4.2
To use something for a new purpose instead of its original one
10
5.8
To explain something again in a different way to give it a new meaning
9
4.7
Think of something in a new way
5
5.5
To get something back after you lose or give it up
1
8.3
Putting something in a new setting changes its meaning
How Assertive
- Formal
156
4.6
1
8.2
77
4.1
19
4.2
44
2.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
reappropriate = appropriate (semi-transparent) = re + appropriate
The link to 'appropriate' is clear, but the specialized sense of reclaiming and giving something a new meaning is not fully predictable from simple 'again/back' composition.
Etymology
Reappropriate is made of re- 'again' and appropriate 'to take as your own', a root you can see in property and proper. So, to reappropriate a word, object, or symbol is to 'take it back' and give it a new meaning or use.