Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The act or an instance of ameliorating.
- n. The state of being ameliorated; improvement.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act of ameliorating, or the state of being ameliorated; a making or becoming better; improvement; melioration.
- n. A thing wherein improvement is realized; an improvement.
Wiktionary
- n. The act of making better.
- n. an improvement
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The act of ameliorating, or the state of being ameliorated; making or becoming better; improvement; melioration.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the act of relieving ills and changing for the better
Etymologies
- French amélioration (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The converse process, amelioration, is evident in the slang uses of wicked, deadly, and sick.”
“The Palestinians have shown nothing over the years if not a great willingness to reject short-term amelioration of living conditions on behalf of larger political principles.”
“Policy decisions should be based on semi-empirical 10-20 year maximum likelihood projections of current trends, with the idea of amelioration of possible negative climate effects, and, honestly, exploitation of any anticipated positive consequences.”
“As for the general interest in social amelioration, that is the worst sign of all.”
“The images of dead babies, looking like baby dolls rather than fragmented remains which appeared yesterday, have been cited by Ms. Philips herself as a kind of amelioration of the situation.”
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
“Here are all these northern liberals from Wisconsin, Ohio, Arthur Morgan and [David] Lilienthal and these people are real liberal folks, but the policies at TVA really did not contribute much at all to any kind of amelioration of racial problems — in hiring let alone the people who were displaced by dams, jobs within TVA.”
“There has been produced an abundant literature in which traditional Christian ethics take ample account of modern social investigations and the theories thus formulated have created a movement for social amelioration which is playing a notable part in the present-day history of Europe.”
“But luckily I was in the 'Fifth Reader' then, and had happened to have 'amelioration' in my spelling-lesson only a few days before; so I spoke up and said, 'Oh, yes, Dr. Longman, he is a great deal better, and he is really hungry to-day.”
“The key word for Jefferson was "amelioration," and it included several stages of national and moral development.”
“The postmodern comedy in the work of Pynchon or Barth or Barthelme doesn't seek to "correct" behaviors and institutions that threaten individual autonomy or impede social progress; it portrays such threats and obstructions as inherent to human life and thus unfortunately not much subject to amelioration.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘amelioration’.
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Chelsea's list
acedia, braggadocio, abnegation, equanimity, flibbertigibbet, edentulous, debonair, hypnotic, pococurante, logorrhea, euonym, feckless and 23 more...
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Potpourri
eponymous, aa, pulchritude, gizmo, macabre, sui generis, solecism, solipsism, eldritch, samizdat, queue, obsequious and 469 more...
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Real words that I love
Words that make me happy in my pants AND have a place in the dictionary.
enervate, efficacious, basilisk, minotaur, elfin, elephantine, schadenfreude, enigma, emasculate, acidic, appalling, ridiculous and 102 more...
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The Confidence Man
Words to remember from Melville's "The Confidence Man"
chevalier, hawk, unalloyed, ex-officio, scruple, pertinacity, epithet, gilt, bedizen, embrasure, escritoire, squaw and 278 more...
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use•ful
palmary, glossolalia, bothum, high-proof, synesthesia, odious, autochthonous, yawp, mordacious, dynamo, dishevel, titely and 414 more...
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thricedotted's Words
schadenfreude, vanquish, calumny, obsequious, rhapsody, expostulate, promontory, bordello, quintessence, catharsis, recapitulation, myriad and 937 more...
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Words about words
Most of these describe word patterns or relationships between words.
panvocalic, palindrome, anagram, transposition, antigram, reversal, isogram, alternade, trinade, beheadment, decapitation, apheresis and 149 more...
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Evin290's Words
puerile, fastidious, blatherskite, folderol, femtosecond, redox, incarnadine, cerulean, genuflection, muslin, multitudinous, miasma and 517 more...
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MY LIST
TENUOUS, LAMPOON, OBLIVIOUS, EPICURE, ACQUIESCE, PLUMMET, EPHEMERAL, BOLSTER, TENACIOUS, OBLIQUE, LACONIC, CREPUSCULAR and 518 more...
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100 words to make you sound great
adamant, affectation, affinity, allay, amelioration, amenable, amoral, assuage, bauble, beguile, beset, bulwark and 88 more...
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Odessa's Words
defenestration, decathect, effulgent, taciturn, ataraxia, coprophagous, nyctitropic, pernicious, paradox, anachronism, synesthesia, cacophony and 223 more...
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hkoliner's Words
abattoir, acerbic, abnegation, acrimonious, adroitness, adroitness, adumbrate, alacrity, amelioration, anathema, anomalous, aplomb and 13 more...
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Lolita
preambulate, solecism, cognomen, etiolate, platitudinous, apotheosis, jocularity, capricious, expiatory, seraph, alpinist, paleopedology and 88 more...
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672 words - ch5
caveat, episteme, pastiche, geodesic, cooptation, collateral, pervasively, commensurate, reify, amelioration, incommensurability, capricious and 3 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for amelioration.

vanishedone Disraeli, Coningsby, with a couple of political fixers selecting an electoral slogan:
'And now for our cry,' said Mr. Taper. ... 'Ancient institutions and modern improvements, I suppose, Mr. Tadpole?'
'Ameliorations is the better word, ameliorations. Nobody knows exactly what it means.' Sep 27, 2008
whichbe A semantic change toward a more positive connotation in the meaning of a word or morpheme; for example, the English word nice, which meant "foolish" in Middle English, now means kind or pleasant. Jun 20, 2007
oroboros antonym: "pejoration" Dec 20, 2006