retread

verb

1. To replace the traction-providing surface of a vehicle that employs tires, tracks or treads.
2. (UK)To renew the tread of a tyre, providing a cheaper alternative to buying a new tyre, but potentially introducing a risk of premature failure if performed improperly.

   “There was no evidence to suggest that the fact that both tyres had been retreaded 3 times was a factor in the failure occurrence. This type of aircraft tyre (Type VII) is routinely retreaded 6 times or more before being taken out of service.”

3. (transitive)To tread again, to walk along again, to follow a path again.

   “As a child I had not been content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural science. With a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my extreme youth and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod the steps of knowledge along the paths of time and exchanged the discoveries of recent inquirers for the dreams of forgotten alchemists. Besides, I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy.”

noun

1. A used tire whose surface, the tread, has been replaced to extend its life and use.
2. (slang)A person who re-entered military service in World War II after serving in World War I.

   “In Our War the Retreads usually slinked in over-aged, over-weight and overcautious in the face of a new generation.”

   “They were retreads and recruits under a small cadre of Regular Army officers and noncoms.”

   “We retreads upset everybody.”

   “As with the 100th Division, many of the replacements joining the 103d were "retreads" from the technical services or antiaircraft and aviation troops...”

3. (figuratively, sometimes)A return over ground previously covered; a retraversal or repetition.

   “But The West Side Waltz is otherwise a tedious retread of Mr. Thompson's previous effort, On Golden Pond.”

   “It uses a howitzer to shoot drugged fish in a barrel, inserts flabby lite-surrealism where the comedy might otherwise go and the plot turns out to be a retread of JM Barrie’s stage-play The Admirable Crichton.”