Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To raise to a more desirable or more excellent quality or condition; make better.
- v. To increase the productivity or value of (land or property).
- v. To put to good use; use profitably.
- v. To become better.
- v. To make beneficial additions or changes: improve on the translation.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make better; ameliorate the condition of; increase in value, excellence, capability, estimation, or the like; bring into a better, higher, more desirable, or more profitable state: as, to improve the mind by study; to improve the breeds of animals; to improve land by careful tillage.
- To turn to advantage or account; use profitably; make use of: as, to improve an opportunity; to improve the occasion.
- To increase in force or amount; intensify in any respect.
- To grow better in any way; become more excellent or more favorable; advance in goodness, knowledge, wisdom, amount, value, etc.: as, his health is improving; the price of cotton improves daily.
- To increase; grow.
- To approve; prove; test.
- To disapprove; censure; blame.
- To disprove; prove false; refute.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive to make (something) better; to increase the value or productivity (of something)
- v. intransitive to become better
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To disprove or make void; to refute.
- v. obsolete To disapprove; to find fault with; to reprove; to censure.
- v. To make better; to increase the value or good qualities of; to ameliorate by care or cultivation.
- v. To use or employ to good purpose; to make productive; to turn to profitable account; to utilize
- v. rare To advance or increase by use; to augment or add to; -- said with reference to what is bad.
- v. To grow better; to advance or make progress in what is desirable; to make or show improvement.
- v. To advance or progress in bad qualities; to grow worse.
- v. To increase; to be enhanced; to rise in value.
WordNet 3.0
- v. get better
- v. to make better
Etymologies
- Middle English improwen, to enclose land for cultivation, from Anglo-Norman emprouwer, to turn to profit : Old French en-, causative pref. (from Latin in-; see in-2) + Old French prou, profit (from Late Latin prōde, advantageous; see proud). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Seeing the living standards of the Chinese people improve is a good thing -- good because we want a stable China, and good because China can be a powerful market for American exports.”
The Huffington Post: Job-Creation Idea No. 7: Drawing A Line With China
“All the oscars need to do to improve is stop the broadway-like production numbers, forget the interpretative dance choreography, and for god's sakes fire Bruce Vilanch as head writer. kencosgrove”
“They don't realize that critiquing can help the critiquer to improve is own writing.”
“But the problem for individuals with things they can improve is by far not lack of information or too much information.”
Against Paternalism, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Chuck failed to improve from the dive it took last week as it posted a 1.9 rating for a second week in a row.”
“I think the chances of a non-white Robin improve with each year.”
“In late 2009, the government failed to sell a majority stake in the WSE to Deutsche B ö rse, the only bidder left in the process, after the German company refused to improve is offer.”
“Seems to me that the best way to help Maine and Perez improve is to add another reliable starter --- let's face it, Pedro is never going to be Pedro again, and there's even some reason to doubt that he wants to be --- or find a way to score more runs and adding the likes of Trot Nixon to the line-up is not the most obvious way to go about this.”
“I wonder if this project can improve from the Google experience. —”
Google Health Begins Its Preseason at Cleveland Clinic - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
“In your book The Progress Paradox, you argue that one reason we tend to feel worse as a society even as our health and prosperity improve is that our cultural elites push bad news on us as a way of asserting their superiority.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘improve’.
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EU Buzz - ALL words and expressions
A combined list of
1. EU Buzz - single words
2. EU Buzz - collocations
3. EU Buzz - the 100 most active
collocation constituentsabsorption capacity, absorption rate, acceding country, accession candidate, accession countries, accession country, accession criteria, accession cycle, accession negotia..., accession partner..., accession priorities, accession treaty and 2650 more...
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Keywords, by Raymond Williams
From a book about life and death.
aesthetic, alienation, art, behaviour, bourgeois, bureaucracy, capitalism, career, charity, city, civilization, class and 99 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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More
aggrandize, augment, increase, improve, increment, evolve, incline, rise, expand
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zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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for words
based upon per- indo-european root
turnverein, veer, frump, far, per, paramount, paramour, parget, parterre, parvenu, perissodactyl, palanquin and 133 more...
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not the sum of their parts
words formed as the combination of two or more other words, but which have a meaning unrelated to either of the constituent words
earwig, ladyfinger, pantywaist, dovetail, eavesdropper, blackmail, greenhorn, mango, carpet, penny farthing, farthingale, damage and 118 more...
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Daily English Vocabulary
upbeat, script, tip, review, quiz, soap, skill, record, cloud, journey, improve, cartoon and 7 more...
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Unit 1
achievement, appetite, apple, attempt, average, balanced diet, balanced meal, become aware of, booked, breath, cabbage, calcium and 88 more...
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Ladanea's Words
ivory, fully, do, adventure, change, choice, strength, undefeatable, dare, free, encircled, light and 16 more...
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