amend Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb make amendments to
    • amend the document
  2. verb to make better
    better; ameliorate; meliorate; improve.
    • The editor improved the manuscript with his changes
  3. verb set straight or right
    repair; remedy; remediate; rectify.
    • remedy these deficiencies
    • rectify the inequities in salaries
    • repair an oversight

WordNet

A*mend" transitive verb
Etymology
F. amender, L. emendare; e(ex) + mendum, menda, fault, akin to Skr. minda personal defect. Cf. Emend, Mend.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Amended; present participle & verbal noun Amending
Definitions
  1. To change or modify in any way for the better; as, (a) by simply removing what is erroneous, corrupt, superfluous, faulty, and the like; (b) by supplying deficiencies; (c) by substituting something else in the place of what is removed; to rectify.
    Mar not the thing that can not be amended. Shak.
    An instant emergency, granting no possibility for revision, or opening for amended thought. De Quincey.
    We shall cheer her sorrows, and amend her blood, by wedding her to a Norman. Sir W. Scott.
    Syn. -- To Amend, Emend, Correct, Reform, Rectify. These words agree in the idea of bringing things into a more perfect state. We correct (literally, make straight) when we conform things to some standard or rule; as, to correct proof sheets. We amend by removing blemishes, faults, or errors, and thus rendering a thing more a nearly perfect; as, to amend our ways, to amend a text, the draft of a bill, etc. Emend is only another form of amend, and is applied chiefly to editions of books, etc. To reform is literally to form over again, or put into a new and better form; as, to reform one's life. To rectify is to make right; as, to rectify a mistake, to rectify abuses, inadvertencies, etc.
A*mend" intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To grow better by rectifying something wrong in manners or morals; to improve. "My fortune . . . amends." Sir P. Sidney.

Webster 1913