rebuilding

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act of building something again, especially after damage or destruction.

   Funding for the rebuilding of the cathedral came from donors across the country.

   The slow rebuilding of trust between the two nations spanned a decade.

   Similarreconstruction, restoration, renewal, rehabilitation

   Oppositedestruction, demolition

   Note

   Railway writing shows the noun at its most concrete, where a locomotive's rebuilding is a single overhaul with a date. Railway Magazine in 1944 speaks of "the complete 1892 rebuilding" of an engine smashed in a collision, and C. P. Boocock in 1961 of "the rebuilding of the Bulleid Pacifics." Used this way the noun counts and takes a date, and it pluralizes: an engine can go through several rebuildings.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of rebuild.

   Engineers are rebuilding the dam to withstand stronger floods.

   After the earthquake, the city is rebuilding entire neighborhoods.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. As a participle it builds progressive phrases (engineers are rebuilding the dam), and as a gerund it names the work itself (rebuilding took years). Like rebuild, it can take an object or stand without one, so a city can simply be rebuilding. In sports talk it turns figurative: a struggling team that is rebuilding is trying to improve, not laying bricks.

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