different between convert vs reconvert

English

Etymology

From Old French convertir, from Latin converto (“turn around”)

Pronunciation

Noun

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k?n.v?t/, [?k???.v?t]
• (General American) enPR: k?n'vûrt, IPA^(key): /?k?n.v?t/, [?k???.v?t]

Verb

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /k?n?v??t/, [k?????v??t]
• (General American) enPR: k?nvûrt', IPA^(key): /k?n?v?t/, [k?????v?t]
• Rhymes: -??(?)t

Verb

convert (third-person singular simple present converts, present participle converting, simple past and past participle converted)

1. (transitive) To transform or change (something) into another form, substance, state, or product.
   • 1684-1690, Thomas Burnet, Sacred Theory of the Earth

     if the whole atmosphere were converted into water
2. (transitive) To change (something) from one use, function, or purpose to another.

   • “A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, […].

3. (transitive) To induce (someone) to adopt a particular religion, faith, ideology or belief (see also sense 11).
   • 1856-1858, William H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip II

     No attempt was made to convert the Moslems.
4. (transitive) To exchange for something of equal value.

5. (transitive) To express (a quantity) in alternative units.
6. (transitive) To express (a unit of measurement) in terms of another; to furnish a mathematical formula by which a quantity, expressed in the former unit, may be given in the latter.

7. (transitive, law) To appropriate wrongfully or unlawfully; to commit the common law tort of conversion.
8. (transitive, intransitive, rugby football) To score extra points after (a try) by completing a conversion.
9. (transitive or intransitive, soccer) To score (especially a penalty kick).
10. (intransitive, ten-pin bowling) To score a spare.
11. (intransitive) To undergo a conversion of religion, faith or belief (see also sense 3).

12. (intransitive) To become converted.

13. (transitive, obsolete) To cause to turn; to turn.
    • 1600, Ben Jonson, Cynthia's Revels

      O, which way shall I first convert myself?

14. (transitive, logic) To change (one proposition) into another, so that what was the subject of the first becomes the predicate of the second.
15. (transitive, obsolete) To turn into another language; to translate.
    • 1609, Ben Jonson, The Masque of Queens

      which story […] Catullus more elegantly converted

16. (transitive, cricket) To increase one's individual score, especially from 50 runs (a fifty) to 100 runs (a century), or from a century to a double or triple century.
    • 2006, BBC, Gillespie hails 'fairytale' knock:

      Gillespie was reminded he had promised to join team-mate Matthew Hayden in a nude lap of the ground if he converted his century into a double.

17. (intransitive, marketing) To perform the action that an online advertisement is intended to induce; to reach the point of conversion.

Antonyms

• deconvert

Derived terms

Related terms

• conversion

Translations

Noun

convert (plural converts)

1. A person who has converted to a religion.

   They were all converts to Islam.

   • 2004, Ted Jones, The French Riviera: A Literary Guide for Travellers, Tauris Parke Paperbacks (2007), ?ISBN, chapter 3, 64:

     While still in this relationship, Greene, a convert to Roman Catholicism at 23, was asked to be godfather to Catherine Walston, a 30-year-old married woman, at her own conversion.

2. A person who is now in favour of something that he or she previously opposed or disliked.

   I never really liked broccoli before, but now that I've tasted it the way you cook it, I'm a convert!

3. (Canadian football) The equivalent of a conversion in rugby

Translations

English

Etymology

re- +? convert

Verb

reconvert (third-person singular simple present reconverts, present participle reconverting, simple past and past participle reconverted)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To convert again, convert back.
   • 1664, John Exton, The Maritime Dicæologie, or Sea Jurisdiction of England, London, Chapter 8, p. 96,^[1]

     Now it could not be expected that so much sea being converted into land by this Judgement by two years labour, and but finished and brought to pass in the 6th year of Henry the Sixth, the same land should be in the very next year, viz. in the 7th year of the same Kings Reign reconverted into sea.

   • 1670, John Milton, The History of Britain, London: James Allestry, Book 4, p. 159,^[2]

     About this time the East-Saxons, who as above hath bin said, had expell’d thir Bishop Mellitus, and renounc’d the Faith, were by the means of Oswi thus reconverted.

   • 1880, Sabine Baring-Gould, Mehalah: A Story of the Salt Marshes, London: Smith, Elder, 1884, Chapter 2, p. 28,^[3]

     In ancient days the hill had been a beacon station, and it was reconverted to this purpose in time of war.

   • 1953, Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, Penguin, 1969, Part 2, Chapter 3, p. 70,^[4]

     A small room, which had been converted into a laboratory, was now reconverted into chaos. A gas-jet burnt yet among the ruins.

   • 1997, Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things, Thorndike, Maine: G.K. Hall, Chapter 1, p. 42,^[5]

     Reverend Ipe went to Madras and withdrew his daughter from the convent. She was glad to leave, but insisted that she would not reconvert, and for the rest of her days remained a Roman Catholic.

2. (transitive) To convert.
   • 1534, William Tyndale, The Newe Testament dylygently corrected and compared with the Greke, Antwerp: Marten Emperowr, Prologue to the {w|First Epistle of Peter}},^[6]

     This epistle dyd saynt Peter wryte to the Hethen that we reconuerted & exhorteth them to stonde fast in the fayth

   • 1654, Henry Glapthorne, Revenge for Honour, London, Act I, Scene 1, p. 6,^[7]

     Gentlemen both,

     and Cozens mine, I do believe ’t much pity,

     to strive to reconvert you from the faith

     you have been bred in:

   • 1963, Margaret Bourke-White, Portrait of Myself, New York: Simon and Schuster, Chapter 28, p. 338,^[8]

     With no regular ammunition supply, they relied on whatever they could capture on raids. When it did not match their miscellaneous firearms, they were ingenious at reconverting the ammo to the weapon.

Related terms

• reconversion
• reconverter

Noun

reconvert (plural reconverts)

1. A person who has been reconverted.
   • 1843, William Ewart Gladstone, “Present Aspect of the Church” in Gleanings of Past Years, London: John Murray, Volume 5, 1879, pp. 33-34,^[9]

     […] it is notorious, that of those professing the creed of naked Protestantism, she [the Church of Rome] has made […] converts and reconverts by thousands—nay, even by millions:

Anagrams

• converter