What does reintegrate mean?
Reintegrate means to bring something or someone back into a former condition, system, group, or community. The word is especially common in discussions of prisoners returning to society, displaced people resuming community life, and separated systems or components being restored to a working whole. It carries a constructive connotation, suggesting that reintegration is not merely a matter of physical replacement but often involves adjustment, acceptance, and participation. In everyday use, it can also apply more broadly to restoring an old practice, structure, or institution that had been separated from the larger system around it. The term is transitive and commonly takes the preposition “into”: to reintegrate someone into society, the workforce, or a community. Because it can refer both to people and to things, it is useful where the emphasis is on returning something to a meaningful place within the whole.
To restore a person or thing to a previous condition or return someone to a community, organization, or system from which they had become separated.
"The employment service helps released prisoners reintegrate into local communities."
Often followed by “into” when describing a person's return to a group or social system.
To bring separated parts back together or incorporate them into a unified system.
"The restoration project reintegrated the old railway station with the surrounding town centre."
This sense is less common than the social and institutional use but is fully established.
Reintegrate means putting something back together so it can function as part of the whole again.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does reintegrate come from?
Reintegrate combines the prefix re-, meaning “again,” with integrate, meaning “make whole” or “bring into a whole.” Integrate ultimately derives from Latin integrare, from integer, “whole” or “entire.” Related English words include integral, integer, entire, and integration.
Related word forms
How reintegrate is actually used
The word is commonly used in social, institutional, legal, and organizational contexts. It can imply a deliberate process of transition and support rather than simply putting something back mechanically.
Easily confused with reintegrate
Integrate means to combine something with other parts or make it part of a larger system, whereas reintegrate implies restoring it to a previous state or returning it to a group from which it had become separated.
Rehabilitate focuses on restoring someone's health, capacity, or standing, while reintegrate focuses especially on bringing someone back into a community, institution, or system.