reformer

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a person who works to improve or change an institution, law, religion, or society

   The prison reformer campaigned for safer conditions and fairer sentencing.

2. 2
   noun

   industry: equipment that converts hydrocarbons into a different fuel or into hydrogen-rich gas

   The refinery installed a catalytic reformer to raise the fuel's octane rating.

Formed from reform + the agent suffix -er: literally, one or something that reforms. Reform comes through French and Latin reformare, from re- ("again") + formare ("to form"). The industrial sense applies the same idea to rearranging hydrocarbon molecules.

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