To reenact something means to act it out again, recreating an event that happened in the past. When historical societies reenact the signing of the Declaration of Independence, actors dress in colonial clothing and perform the scene as it might have happened in 1776. When you reenact a funny moment from recess for your family at dinner, you're showing them what happened by acting it out again.

Civil War reenactors study historical battles carefully, then gather in period uniforms to recreate those battles as accurately as possible. Museums sometimes reenact daily life from different time periods, showing visitors how people cooked, worked, or played centuries ago.

You can also reenact recent events. When investigators reenact an incident, they carefully recreate what happened to better understand it. When your teacher asks the class to reenact a scene from a book you're reading, you're bringing those written words to life through performance. A reenactment is the performance itself: the historical reenactment of a famous speech or the reenactment of how your soccer team scored the winning goal.