reforming

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of reform.

   Lawmakers are reforming the healthcare system this session.

   Reforming an entrenched bureaucracy demands patience and political will.

   Note

   The same -ing spelling does two grammatical jobs. In lawmakers are reforming the system it is the progressive verb; in reforming a bureaucracy demands patience it is a gerund, sitting where a noun would sit while still taking a direct object. That object is the test: the plain noun needs of instead, as in the reforming of the church. Reform can also be intransitive, so someone can simply be reforming, mending their own ways, with no object at all.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or process of improving something by correcting its faults; a reformation.

   The reforming of the medieval church reshaped European society.

   Decades of slow reforming finally modernized the aging institution.

   Similarreform, reformation, improvement, overhaul

3. 3
   noununcountable

   In oil refining, a catalytic process that rearranges the structure of hydrocarbon molecules, chiefly to turn low-octane naphtha into high-octane fuel components.

   The plant relies on catalytic reforming to raise the octane rating of its naphtha.

   Engineers adjusted the reforming unit to produce more high-octane blending stock.

   Note

   The petrochemical sense travels with its adjective: catalytic reforming, where the catalyst is what lets short-chain molecules join into larger ones. In the trade it is countable as well as a mass noun. The Petroleum Times in 1969 reported plans for 15 catalytic reformings alongside units for primary processing, and there the plural names installations rather than runs of the process. Outside the refinery, the noun points instead toward improving an institution.

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