reexamination

noun

re·​ex·​am·​i·​na·​tion (ˌ)rē-ig-ˌza-mə-ˈnā-shən 

variants or re-examination

plural reexaminations or re-examinations

1

: the act or process of examining something again especially from a different viewpoint

… force a critical reexamination of the premises and standards of existing scholarly work.

—Joan W. Scott

2

law

a

: the act or process of examining a witness in a court of law after the witness has been cross-examined : redirect examination

b

: the review by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office of the validity of a patent being questioned on the basis of prior art

In another type of proceedings, called reexamination, the challenger can trigger rejection of the patent by producing new evidence of prior art—new evidence that the invention was "not novel or was obvious."

—Erik Larson

Synonyms

• reappraisal
• reconsideration
• retrospect
• retrospection
• review

Examples of reexamination in a Sentence

the safety board's reexamination of the accident to see if it could have been prevented

Recent Examples on the Web

The reexamination of the case came more than 35 years after the fatal shooting of Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills home. —Cindy Von Quednow, CNN, 24 Oct. 2024

The reexamination relates to new evidence uncovered over the past year providing context to the crimes. —Winston Cho, The Hollywood Reporter, 24 Oct. 2024

Further, an important reform movement in psychology has prompted reexamination of many classic experiments. —Laura Niemi, Scientific American, 26 Sep. 2024

Cooper takes a revisionist view of the second world war that goes far beyond a continuing reexamination of the past — a basic part of any historian’s work — or even an exaggerated contrarianism into ... —Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 10 Sep. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1604, in the meaning defined at sense 1