Verb

(en verb)

To put into a new and improved form or condition; to restore to a former good state, or bring from bad to good; to change from worse to better; to amend; to correct.

to reform''' a profligate man; to '''reform corrupt manners or morals

* Jonathan Swift

The example alone of a vicious prince will corrupt an age; but that of a good one will not reform it.

To return to a good state; to amend or correct one's own character or habits; as, a person of settled habits of vice will seldom reform.

(intransitive) To form again or in a new configuration.

This product contains reformed meat.

The regiment reformed after surviving the first attack.

The pop group reformed for one final tour.

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=August 21 , author=Jason Heller , title=The Darkness: Hot Cakes (Music Review) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=Since first tossing its cartoonish, good-time cock-rock to the masses in the early ’00s, The Darkness has always fallen back on this defense: The band is a joke, but hey, it’s a good joke. With Hot Cakes —the group’s third album, and first since reforming last year—the laughter has died. In its place is the sad wheeze of the last surviving party balloon slowly, listlessly deflating.}}

Verb

(obsolete) To pierce; now generally replaced by transfix.

# (by extension) (Of a piercing look) to direct at someone.

He fixed me with a sickly grin, and said, "I told you it wouldn't work!"

To attach; to affix; to hold in place.

A dab of chewing gum will fix your note to the bulletin board.

A leech can fix itself to your skin without you feeling it.

# (transitive, figuratively, usually in the passive) To focus or determine (oneself, on a concept); to fixate.

She's fixed on the idea of becoming a doctor.

To mend, to repair.

That heater will start a fire if you don't fix it.

(informal) To prepare (food).

She fixed dinner for the kids.

To make (a contest, vote, or gamble) unfair; to privilege one contestant or a particular group of contestants, usually before the contest begins; to arrange immunity for defendants by tampering with the justice system via bribery or extortionSutherland, Edwin H. (ed) (1937): The Professional Thief: by a Professional Thief. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Reprinted by various publishers in subsequent decades.]

A majority of voters believed the election was fixed in favor of the incumbent.

(transitive, US, informal) To surgically render an animal, especially a pet, infertile.

Rover stopped digging under the fence after we had the vet fix him.

(transitive, mathematics, sematics) To map a (point or subset) to itself.

(informal) To take revenge on, to best; to serve justice on an assumed miscreant.

He got caught breaking into lockers, so a couple of guys fixed him after work.

To render (a photographic impression) permanent by treating with such applications as will make it insensitive to the action of light.

(transitive, chemistry, biology) To convert into a stable or available form.

Legumes are valued in crop rotation for their ability to fix nitrogen.

(Abney)

To become fixed; to settle or remain permanently; to cease from wandering; to rest.

* (rfdate) (Waller)

Your kindness banishes your fear, / Resolved to fix forever here.

To become firm, so as to resist volatilization; to cease to flow or be fluid; to congeal; to become hard and malleable, as a metallic substance.

(Francis Bacon)