improve
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɪmˈpɹuːv/
rhymes: -uːv
Forms: form: improves
form: improving
form: improved
form: improved
form: emprove
Etymology: From Anglo-Norman emprouwer, from Old French en- + prou (“profit”), from Vulgar Latin prode (“advantageous, profitable”).
Senses: examples: text: Painting the woodwork will improve this house.
text: Buying more servers would improve performance.
text: Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.
ref: 2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:
glosses: To make (something) better; to increase the value or productivity (of something).
examples: text: I have improved since taking the tablets.
text: The error messages have improved since the last version, when they were incomprehensible.
text: “My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”
ref: 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 41:
glosses: To become better.
examples: text: to improve one's time;  to improve his means
text: We shall especially honour God, by discharging faithfully those offices which God hath entrusted us with: by improving diligently those talents which God hath committed to us
ref: a. 1678 (date written), Isaac Barrow, “(please specify the chapter name or sermon number). The Reward of Honouring God”, in The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy, […], published 1830–1831, →OCLC:
text: [A] hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved […]
ref: 1711 July 18 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “SATURDAY, July 7, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 111; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 96:
text: How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour.
ref: 1715, Isaac Watts, Against Idleness and Mischief:
text: [T]he court has alſo an opportunity, which it ſeldom fails to improve, […]
ref: 1768, William Blackstone, “Of Judgment, and It’s Incidents”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book III (Of Private Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 392:
text: March 7, 1778, George Washington, letter
True policy, as well as good faith, in my opinion, binds us to improve the occasion.
glosses: To use or employ to good purpose; to turn to profitable account.
Synonyms: sense: to make something better
word: ameliorate
word: better
word: batten
word: enhance
word: aprimorate (non-native speakers’ English (chiefly Portuguese))
word: amend
word: hone
word: improve
word: meliorate
word: refine
word: get better
word: look up
Hypernyms: word: alter
Hyponyms: word: bling out
word: prettify
word: sex up
word: spark up
word: spiff up
word: spice
word: spice up
word: spruce up
word: sprucen up
word: sweeten
word: tart up
word: titivate
word: zhoosh
Derived terms: disimprove
improvability
improvable
improvement
improve on
improver
improve the occasion
improve upon
improving
improving agent
improving lease
misimprove
on the improve
reimprove
self-improve
Related terms: word: repair
word: empower