restoration
Pluralrestorations
- 1The process of returning something to its original condition or earlier state.
The careful restoration of the medieval manuscript revealed its original colors.
Restoration of the wetlands brought back native birds and plants within a few years.
Similarrepair, renovation, restitution
Note
Behind the modern spelling sits Middle English restauracion, from Latin restaurātiō, later reshaped to match the verb restore. Among conservators the word signals a choice: T. S. Eliot wrote in 1921 that there is "all the difference between preservation and restoration." Preservation keeps what survives. Restoration may remove later work to recover an earlier state, as when a medieval church is stripped of its Victorian modifications.
- 2An item produced by restoring something, such as a dental prosthesis that repairs or replaces a tooth.
The crown was the most expensive restoration the patient had ever needed.
Conservators catalogued each restoration applied to the fresco over the centuries.
Similarrepair
Note
Here the word names a finished thing rather than an activity, so it takes a plural: a dentist fits restorations, and a prosthodontics journal reports on them. In dentistry it covers fillings, crowns, inlays and bridges alike. The article usually tells the two apart. The restoration of a tooth is the work of repair, while a restoration is the object that ends up in the mouth.
- 3The return of a former monarch or monarchy to power, often after a period of being forced out.
The restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 ended a decade of republican rule.
Loyalists worked for years toward the restoration of the exiled queen.
Similarreinstatement, return, reestablishment
Oppositeoverthrow, deposition
Note
Political history's sense usually comes in the form "the restoration of" a house or a kingdom, as with the Stuarts after Cromwell or the Spanish crown after Franco. In Albion and Albanius (1685), John Dryden still spells it Restauration, close to its Latin source. The word now reaches beyond crowns. In 2023 Jennifer Senior wrote of "a Trump restoration," meaning the return of an ousted leader.
- 4The return of an earlier socioeconomic formation to its position as the dominant mode of production.
Marxist theorists debated whether the restoration of capitalism in former socialist states was inevitable.
He warned that any restoration of the old mode of production would reverse decades of reform.
Similarreturn, revival, reinstatement
- 5The act of receiving a sinner back into divine favor and grace.
The doctrine teaches the restoration of the penitent to full divine favor.
Through confession and grace, the believer longed for restoration to God's favor.
Similarreconciliation
Note
Theology uses the word for a relationship mended rather than an object repaired. What is restored is the sinner's standing with God. The usual construction is restoration to something, as in restoration to grace or to divine favor. The person comes first in the phrase, as in the restoration of the penitent. Used this way, it belongs to doctrine and devotional writing rather than to everyday speech.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English restoracion, altered from restauracion (from Latin restaurātiō), and partly shaped by restoren plus the suffix -acion. In effect, it is restore plus -ation.