reparative

English

Adjective

reparative (comparative more reparative, superlative most reparative)

1. Tending to or intended to repair.

   reparative surgery

   • 1582, Stephen Batman, transl., Batman vppon Bartholome his Booke De Proprietatibus Rerum‎^[1], Book 7, Chapter 32, p. 98:

     Men shal giue the patient medicines confortatiue and reparatiue, that restore the spirites, and bringeth them againe.

   • 1649, Jeremy Taylor, The Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life according to the Christian Institution‎^[2], Worcester: Francis Ash, Part 2, Discourse 10, p. 135:

     To go to law for revenge, we are simply forbidden, that is, to returne evill for evill; and therefore all those suits, which are for vindictive sentences, not for reparative, are directly criminall.

   • 1867, Anthony Trollope, chapter 13, in Nina Balatka‎^[3]:

     […] garments had come to her which were old and worn, bearing unmistakable signs of Lotta’s coarse but reparative energies — raiment against which her feminine niceness would have rebelled, had it been possible for her, in her misfortunes, to indulge her feminine niceness.

   • 2011 August 8, Ben Marcus, “What Have You Done?”, in The New Yorker:

     They made up, saying all the reparative things, but it went only so far. Andrea assured him that everything was forgiven, except when he hung up and went inside it didn’t feel as if everything, or even anything, had been forgiven.

2. Of, pertaining to, or being a reparation.

   reparative justice

   • 1998, Shay Bilchik, Guide for Implementing the Balanced and Restorative Justice Model‎^[4], Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, page 13:

     Intended for offenders of misdemeanor or nonviolent felony crimes, the Reparative Probation Program directly involves community members meeting face to face with offenders to negotiate a “reparative agreement” that specifies how offenders will make reparation to their victims and other community members.

   • 2014 May 23, Errin Haines Whack, “The ‘Case for Reparations’ is solid, and it’s long past time to make them”, in The Guardian‎^[5]:

     […] social media was ablaze for days in anticipation of this month’s Atlantic cover story arguing in favor of reparative payments to African-Americans for state-sanctioned slavery and segregation.

Noun

reparative (plural reparatives)

1. (rare) That which repairs.
   • 1642, Henry Wotton, A Short View of the Life and Death of George Villers, Duke of Buckingham‎^[6], London: William Sheares, page 22:

     […] the Dukes fame did still remain more and more in obliquie among the masse of people, whose judgements are only reconciled with good successes, so as he saw plainly that he must abroad again to rectifie with his best endeavour under the publike service, his own reputation; Whereupon new preparatives were in hand, and partly reparatives of the former beaten at Sea:

   • 1891, Newark and Its Leading Businessmen, Newark, New Jersey: Mercantile Publishing Company, John Sanders, Practical Plumber, p. 80,^[7]

     It is better to lay out a little more money on a good job of plumbing at the start, than to be obliged to continually lay out money for reparatives on a poor job.

Derived terms

• neuroreparative
• reparative therapy