Definition of "reprocess" [reprocess]

• To cause to undergo special or additional processing before reuse. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• ""They certainly intend to reprocess, which is their first public acknowledgment of a nuclear-weapons program," said one senior administration official."
• "In June 1994 North Korea announced that it was leaving the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expelling foreign weapons inspectors, and planning to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to separate plutonium, a key ingredient in a nuclear weapon."
• "After the 1994 agreement fell apart, the North Koreans were able to reprocess 8,000 spent fuel rods - which had been held in a cooling pond and monitored by U.N. inspectors - to acquire enough plutonium for as many as 10 weapons."