'Reform' is reshaping what has lost its proper form — its most famous deployment: the Protestant Reformation.
To make changes in something, typically a social, political, or economic institution, in order to improve it; to cause someone to give up an immoral or criminal lifestyle; (noun) the action or process of reforming.
From Old French 'reformer,' from Latin 'refōrmāre' (to form again, to shape anew, to restore to an earlier correct shape), composed of 're-' (again, back) + 'fōrmāre' (to shape, to form, to give form to), from 'fōrma' (shape, form, pattern, mold, appearance). The prefix 're-' carries both the sense of repetition (doing again) and of return to a prior state — an ambiguity that is conceptually essential to the word's political meaning. To 'reform' is to restore what has been corrupted to its proper form, framing all reform movements as restorations rather than
The Protestant Reformation (1517–) gave this word its most consequential historical application. Martin Luther did not originally intend to create a new church — he sought to 're-form' the existing Catholic Church, to restore it to what he believed was its proper shape. The word 'Reformation' captured the idea that the movement was not an innovation but a restoration — a forming-again of something that had been deformed.
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