reorient

verb

re·​ori·​ent (ˌ)rē-ˈȯr-ē-ˌent 

reoriented; reorienting

transitive verb

: to orient (someone or something) again or differently: such as

a

: to change the orientation or direction of (something or someone)

reorient the antenna

reoriented herself so she was facing north

b

: to reacquaint (someone, especially oneself) with a situation, environment, etc.

woke up and reoriented myself to my surroundings

… returning servicewomen and men struggling to reorient themselves to civilian life.

—Molly Callahan

c

: to change the goal or emphasis of (something or someone)

… I stumbled into motherhood and was bewildered at … the volte-face required to reorient myself, my values and my way of life …

—Madeleine Bunting

… lacks nearly every resource necessary to reorient its archaic industrial economy …

—David Remnick

The long-term potential of vast databases of genomic data to … reorient the debate on medical priorities …

—Larry Downes and Paul Nunes

also : to direct (something) toward the interests of a different group

… reorienting its policy priorities to the working class.

—Franklin Foer

reorientation

(ˌ)rē-ˌȯr-ē-ən-ˈtā-shən 

-ˌen-

noun

plural reorientations

Many soldiers also find blogging a useful way to help deal with reorientation to civilian life …

—Brad Knickerbocker

Examples of reorient in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

This reorients Microsoft's entire portfolio, making Windows the agent execution environment, Azure the scaling platform, and Entra the identity system. — Francis Sideco, Forbes.com, 21 July 2026

And then, minute by minute, the contest reoriented itself around him. — Sam Knight, New Yorker, 20 July 2026

Now Laura walked those same routes, reorienting herself with a place that had been changed by her absence, the way that her husband had been changed by her absence. — Literary Hub, 13 July 2026

McGregor wanted his return Saturday to reorient attention back to his in-ring spectacles rather than his outside-the-cage troubles. — Mark Puleo, New York Times, 12 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1877, in the meaning defined above