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History vocabulary · Periods and Eras

Reformation

Meaning in history, with examples

/ˌrefəˈmeɪʃn/nounCommon term

In history, Reformation means: The sixteenth-century religious movement in Western Europe that challenged the authority and practices of the Catholic Church and led to the founding of Protestant churches.

In Turkish: Reform hareketi, Reformasyon

How it is used

Written as the Reformation with a capital R and usually dated from Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses of 1517. Historians also speak of the Catholic Reformation or Counter-Reformation, and of the English Reformation under Henry VIII.

Example sentences

  1. The printing press helped Reformation ideas spread quickly across Germany.

  2. The Reformation divided Western Christianity into Catholic and Protestant churches.

Common collocations

  • the Protestant Reformation
  • the Counter-Reformation
  • the English Reformation
  • Reformation Europe
  • RenaissanceThe cultural movement in Europe from about the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, starting in Italy, marked by renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman learning and art.
  • early modernRelating to the period of roughly 1500 to 1800, between the Middle Ages and the modern age, marked by printing, global exploration, new states and early capitalism.
  • EnlightenmentThe European intellectual movement of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that stressed reason, science, individual rights and criticism of traditional authority.
  • reformA planned change to laws, institutions or practices meant to improve them, usually made step by step by those in power rather than through revolution.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Periods and Eras

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