Meaning & use
recalibrate yourself
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Meanings
verbtransitivefigurative
to adjust your own attitudes, habits or goals in order to deal with a new situation.
Grammar: Takes a reflexive object: you recalibrate yourself, not 'recalibrate you'.
Patterns
- recalibrate yourself
- recalibrate yourself to something
- recalibrate yourself for something
After the setback, she took time to recalibrate herself and set new goals.
You may need to recalibrate yourself to the slower pace of country life.
He used the holiday to recalibrate himself for the busy year ahead.
verbtransitivetechnical
to adjust a device or instrument again so that it measures accurately.
Grammar: Usually takes a thing as object, such as a scale or sensor, rather than a person.
Patterns
- recalibrate something
- recalibrate the instrument
The lab technician recalibrated the scale before each test.
You should recalibrate the sensor after moving the machine.
Word forms
| third person singular | recalibrates yourself |
|---|---|
| past tense | recalibrated yourself |
| past participle | recalibrated yourself |
| -ing form | recalibrating yourself |
Common combinations
- recalibrate yourself to a new situation
- It takes courage to recalibrate yourself to a new situation.
- take time to recalibrate yourself
- Take time to recalibrate yourself before making big decisions.
- recalibrate your goals
- The coach helped him recalibrate his goals for the season.
- recalibrate the instrument
- Please recalibrate the instrument before the experiment.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- calibrate verb
- To set or mark an instrument so that it measures correctly.
- calibration noun
- The act of checking or adjusting an instrument's accuracy.
- recalibration noun
- The process of adjusting something again, literally or figuratively.
Commonly confused: recalibrate yourself or calibrate?
recalibrate yourself vs calibrate
'Calibrate' means to set something up correctly the first time; 'recalibrate' means to adjust it again after it has drifted.
Practice
Which sentence uses the phrase correctly?
Choose one answer.
The reflexive pronoun must match the subject, so 'herself' goes with 'she'. Option 1 uses 'her', which would refer to another person, and option 3 uses the wrong form after 'to'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “recalibrate yourself”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.