restore
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
v.to repair something old so that it looks and works like it did when it was new.
v.to return an object or building to its former condition through careful repair or renovation.
Simple“The museum spent years trying to restore the old painting to its original beauty.”
In context“The historical society raised funds to restore the Victorian mansion, ensuring that every architectural detail matched the original 1885 blueprints.”
UsageOften used with 'to' to indicate the target state.
- 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
v.to bring back a law, a feeling, or a situation that existed before.
v.to re-establish or reinstate a previous practice, law, or state of affairs.
Simple“The police worked hard to restore order after the protest ended.”
In context“The new administration promised to restore public confidence in the banking system by introducing stricter transparency requirements.”
- 03 B2 Upper Intermediate
v.to put information back onto a computer from a saved copy.
v.to recover files or system settings from a backup or previous state.
Simple“I had to restore my phone from a backup after it crashed.”
In context“The IT department managed to restore the database to its state before the ransomware attack, minimizing the loss of customer records.”
- 04 C1 Advanced
v.to give something back to its rightful owner.
v.to return something that was lost or taken to its original owner or place.
Simple“The stolen jewels were eventually restored to the royal family.”
In context“International law often requires that looted cultural artifacts be restored to their country of origin.”
Teacher's tipIn everyday English, people usually say 'give back' or 'return' instead of 'restore' for physical objects.
- 05 C1 Advanced
n.the act of putting saved information back onto a computer.
n.the process of recovering data or system configurations from a backup source.
Simple“The system restore took about twenty minutes to complete.”
In context“After the server failure, the administrator initiated a full restore of the primary partition to ensure service continuity.”
Usage restore equilibrium
From Middle English restoren, from Old French restorer, from Latin rēstaurāre. By surface analysis, re- + store.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.