reforms

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of reform.

   The government's economic reforms reshaped the banking sector within a decade.

   Several proposed reforms stalled in committee before the session ended.

   Note

   Only the countable reform takes this plural. A reform is one discrete measure, so reforms are several of them: proposed, passed, stalled or reversed. Reform as an abstract process (calls for reform, the cause of reform) stays singular. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb, so the council reforms could be a noun phrase or a subject and its verb. The rest of the sentence decides.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of reform.

   Each administration reforms the welfare system to suit its own priorities.

   The charity reforms struggling shelters by retraining their staff.

   Note

   The verb works in two directions. Used transitively, someone reforms something else: a system, a prison, a tax code. Used intransitively, a person reforms themselves, mending their own character or habits, and no object follows. A third, literal use means forming again, as when a scattered line regroups. Watch for the missing object: it signals that the subject itself is what changes.

   After years of drinking, he finally reforms and wins back his family's trust.

   The column scatters under fire, then reforms behind the ridge.

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