/amend-meaning

/amend-meaning-etymology

-) Verb.

-) Pronunciation and accent: əmɛnd.

-) Etymology: of Old French amender, from Latin emendare “amend, correct”, from e- “out” + mendum “fault”. Spanish enmendar, Italian emendare and French amender are from the same origin.

-) It is dated from the beginning of 1200.

-) Transitively: 

-) 1. (Obsolete) to make amendment of (a person); correct (someone) of a fault.

-) 2. To correct (a thing) of a fault.

-) It is obsolete, except when the direct object is relative to a textual error; to emendate. 

-) Translation: amender, in French; enmendar, in Spanish; emendare, in Italian.

Such was the deserved end of the traitor and tyrant Vuist; yet Versluys, who was sent expressly to amend what the other had done amiss, and to make the people forget the excesses of his predecessor by a mild and gentle administration, acted perhaps even worse than Vuist.

R. Kerr… Voyages and Travels… 1824

His journal only required to be divided into chapters, and perhaps to be amended by a few verbal corrections.

A. Kippis… Narrative… 1826

… the phraseology shall be preserved, while the spelling only is amended.

J. Banim… The Denounced… 1830

The first edition of this appeared in 1583; the second, which is much enlarged and amended, in 1598.

H. Hallam… Literature of Europe… 1855

I shall send a copy of the entries in the diary, revised and amended.

M. Braddon… Birds of Prey… 1867

Gibbon rightly amended his phrase.

John Morley… Voltaire… 1886

-) 3. To make the amendment of (a bill, a constitution, etc.); to modify formally by addition or deletion of text; to rephrase.

I am far from considering this bill as one of those that cannot be amended, for I can discover but few objections to the regulations proposed in it, and those not relating to any of the essential parts, but slight and circumstantial.

S. Johnson… The Works… 1825

In the committee, when we have considered the first clause, and heard the objections against it, we may mend it; or, if it cannot be amended, reject or postpone it, and so proceed through the whole bill with much greater expedition.

S. Johnson… The Works… 1825

-) 4. (Archaic) to repair (what is damaged); to restore.

-) 5. (Obsolete) to heal (a sick person); to cure (a disease).

-) 6. Hence: to cause (something) to become better; improve; to modify for the better; to better.

This increase of barley tillage hath also amended the Cornish drink, by converting that grain into malt, which (to the ill refreshing of strangers) in former times they made only of oats.

R. Carew… Carew’s Survey of Cornwall… 1602

-) Intransitively: to correct oneself of one’s faults; to cease from misbehaving.

-) English words derived from the verb “amend”: amendment, amendable, amendableness, amendatory, amended, amender, amending, amends.

-) English words derived from Latin mendum: emend, emendable, emendate, emendation, emendator, emendatory, emended, emender, mend, mendable, mendacious, mendicant.