re-classify, verb transitive

Origin:
EnglishShow more English re- again + classify.
historical
Usually passive. In terms of the Population Registration Act of 1950: to have one’s official ethnic designation changed, thus becoming a member of a different legally-defined ethnic group.
1970 Daily News 9 JuneA Durban Coloured woman..who was acquitted in January of contravening the Immorality Act with her White boyfriend, is still battling to be re-classified as a White.
1970 Survey of Race Rel. 1969 (S.A.I.R.R) 24In many smaller towns..there are few Coloured people...An inter-departmental committee had completed an examination of the possibility of reclassifying such of these people as had become Africanized.
1980 C. Hope A Separate Development (1983) 130Joerie had got himself reclassified as a white man and was damn proud of his status.
1982 Pace June 41According to statistics released in Parliament this year, more than 600 people were reclassified last year. Of these, 558 were Cape Coloureds who were reclassified white and 15 were whites who were reclassified Cape Coloured.
1990 D. Beckett in Frontline Mar.–Apr. 33Ahmed started off, by barroom consensus, as an Indian...Somewhere in South Africa’s maze of changing racial legalities he got himself reclassified as coloured.
1991 K. Swart in Sunday Times 17 Feb. 12His brother, who was blond with blue eyes and fair skin was classified white and had to be reclassified coloured before he was allowed to write his matric exams at a coloured school.
In terms of the Population Registration Act of 1950: to have one’s official ethnic designation changed, thus becoming a member of a different legally-defined ethnic group.
Derivatives:
Hence re-classification  noun, the changing of a person’s official ethnic designation from one legally-defined group to another. See also classification.
1971 Daily News 24 Apr. 9Wrote on his behalf to the Minister of the Interior asking for his re-classification as ‘Malay’.
1973 Sunday Times 27 May 7A number of Coloured people who have been living in Churchhaven for many years have made application for reclassification as Whites so that they can stay there.
1977 D. Muller in Quarry ’77 64Perhaps she’ll try for re-classification: that strange South African alchemy of forms and rubber stamps that would transmute her from a beautiful Coloured girl into a beautiful White one, from restrictions to freedom!
1982 E. Prov. Herald 29 Apr. 1The Department of Internal Affairs has had specially trained people working overtime to handle the number of applications for racial reclassification.
1982 Pace June 40Old Mr Mills, despite his pigmentation, is classified as a coloured — a Cape Coloured to be exact. And this because he wants to be. Mr Mills is one of the few whites in South Africa to apply successfully for reclassification.
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