Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act or process of reinforcing or the state of being reinforced.
  • noun Something that reinforces.
  • noun Additional personnel or equipment sent to support a military action.
  • noun The occurrence or experimental introduction of an unconditioned stimulus along with a conditioned stimulus.
  • noun The strengthening of a conditioned response by such means.
  • noun An event, circumstance, or condition that increases the likelihood that a given response will recur in a situation like that in which the reinforcing condition originally occurred.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of reinforcing.
  • noun Additional force; fresh assistance; specifically, additional troops or forces to augment the strength of a military or naval force.
  • noun Any augmentation of strength or force by something added.
  • noun Splints of rigid material built into a compound or sinew-backed bow.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun See reënforcement.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The act, process, or state of reinforcing or being reinforced.
  • noun countable A thing that reinforces.
  • noun in the plural Additional troops or materiel sent to support a military action.
  • noun uncountable The process whereby a behavior with desirable consequences comes to be repeated.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun information that makes more forcible or convincing
  • noun a military operation (often involving new supplies of men and materiel) to strengthen a military force or aid in the performance of its mission
  • noun a device designed to provide additional strength
  • noun (psychology) a stimulus that strengthens or weakens the behavior that produced it
  • noun an act performed to strengthen approved behavior

Etymologies

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