amend
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /əˈmɛnd/
rhymes: -ɛnd
Forms: form: amends
form: amending
form: amended
form: amended
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: amend
form: amend
form: amended
form: amend
form: amendest
form: amended
form: amendedst
form: amends
form: amendeth
form: amended
form: amend
form: amended
form: amend
form: amended
form: amend
form: -
form: amending
form: amended
Etymology: From Middle English amenden, from Old French amender, from Latin ēmendō (“free from faults”), from ex (“from, out of”) + mendum (“fault”). Compare aphetic mend. Doublet of emend.
Senses: examples: text: Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee;
Mar not the thing that cannot be amended.
ref: 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC:
text: We shall cheer her sorrows, and amend her blood, by wedding her to a Norman.
ref: 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XIII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:
text: I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
glosses: To make better; improve.
examples: text: The teacher sat at one end of the bench, with a meek little fellow by his side. When the others were disorderly, this young martyr received a rap; intended, probably, as a sample of what the rest might expect, if they didn't amend.
ref: 1847 March 30, Herman Melville, Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas; […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC:
glosses: To become better.
examples: text: But Paridell complaynd, that his late fight / With Britomart, so sore did him offend, / That ryde he could not, till his hurts he did amend.
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
text: he gave her a vomit, and conveyed a serpent, such as she conceived, into the basin; upon the sight of it she was amended.
ref: 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 2, member 6, subsection ii:
glosses: To heal (someone sick); to cure (a disease etc.).
examples: text: Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls
That stay his cure: their malady convinces
The great assay of art; but at his touch—
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand—
They presently amend.
ref: c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
glosses: To be healed, to be cured, to recover (from an illness).
examples: text: The following motions cannot be amended:
ref: 1876, Henry Martyn Robert, Robert’s Rules of Order, Chicago: S.C. Griggs & Co., Article III, Section 23, p. 46:
text: 1990, Doug Hoyle, Hansard, Trade Union Act, 1984, Amendment no. 2, 4 July, 1990,
It is necessary to amend the Act to preserve the spirit in which it was first passed into law […]
glosses: To make a formal alteration (in legislation, a report, etc.) by adding, deleting, or rephrasing.
Synonyms: ameliorate
correct
improve
Derived terms: amendability
amendable
amendation
amendful
reamend
Related terms: emend