Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Definitions

reformatory



Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

"They put me in a reformatory when I was 17."

From BBC Nov. 15, 2025

In the film about two teens in a reformatory school, the camera becomes the point-of-view of a couple of characters, while other characters look directly into the lens.

From Los Angeles Times Dec. 17, 2024

For people like them, the reformatory offered one of the few pathways to a degree inside.

From Seattle Times Dec. 6, 2022

This reformatory housed youngsters who had been convicted of theft, truancy or ill-disciplined – the types of children whose parents didn't want to know, outcasts.

From Salon Sep. 30, 2022

Impertinence to a teacher was almost a reformatory offense in Brooklyn.

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

As a teen, Clayton-Thomas lived on the streets and passed through a series of jails and reformatories.

From BBC Jun. 25, 2026

In 1972, in a controversial action that would bring sweeping changes to juvenile corrections across the United States, Dr. Miller began shutting down Massachusetts’s reformatories.

From Washington Post Aug. 15, 2015

In examining the state child-care system in Ireland, the series brought to light a Dickensian network of reformatories and residential schools for poor, neglected and abandoned children known as industrial schools.

From New York Times Jan. 12, 2012

The result -- for Mayan, at least -- was a three-year odyssey through various ultra-Orthodox reformatories and foster families.

From Salon Feb. 18, 2010

Recent experiments in reformatories have demonstrated the immense advantage of methods which attempt something like this.

From A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution by Williams, C. M.




Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 12,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training