Synonyms

reorganize

American

[ree-awr-guh-nahyz] / riˈɔr gəˌnaɪz /

especially British, reorganise

verb (used with or without object)

to organize again.

reorganize British

/ riːˈɔːɡəˌnaɪz /

verb

to change the way (something) is organized

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of reorganize

First recorded in 1675–85; re- + organize

Explanation

When you change the way something is structured or arranged, you reorganize it. If you can never find two matching socks when you get dressed in the morning, you might want to reorganize your sock drawer. You might reorganize your stamp collection, sorting them by color instead of country. And a government may reorganize a country's entire economy, focusing on tourism instead of exporting oil, for example. Reorganize adds the "again" prefix re- to organize, a verb rooted in the Latin organum, "instrument or tool." Organize is related to organ, and its very earliest meaning was "arrange into a living being."

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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Last week, PayPal said it would reorganize into three business units: Checkout Solutions & PayPal, Consumer Financial Services & Venmo, and Payment Services & Crypto.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 5, 2026

Under specific conditions, what normally looks like a scattered and disordered laser signal can reorganize itself into a narrow, highly focused "pencil beam."

From Science Daily • Apr. 28, 2026

The team was able to directly observe how atoms in a model system shift and reorganize before this unusual decay takes place.

From Science Daily • Mar. 24, 2026

I tell this story as a word of caution, because it can be very tempting to treat spring cleaning as an opportunity to reorganize your kitchen entirely.

From Salon • Mar. 19, 2026

It seems to me like what we’re really doing is trying to reorganize a system that has come to make no sense in a country that has come to make no sense.

From "Girl in the Blue Coat" by Monica Hesse

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023