Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The act or process of improving something or the state of being improved.
- n. An improvement.
- n. The linguistic process by which a word over a period of time grows more elevated in meaning or more positive in connotation.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act or process of making or becoming better; improvement; amelioration.
- n. plural In Scots law, improvements made by a tenant upon the property which he rents, and for which he is in certain cases entitled to compensation from the landlord.
Wiktionary
- n. archaic An improvement, betterment or amelioration
- n. linguistics The process in which a term gains a more positive connotation over time
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The act or operation of meliorating, or the state of being meliorated; improvement.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the act of relieving ills and changing for the better
- n. a condition superior to an earlier condition
- n. the linguistic process in which over a period of time a word grows more positive in connotation or more elevated in meaning
Examples
“Instances, rare instances, of such "melioration" and of such "schools of instruction," I doubt not there have been: but, I am confident, that the”
“Always the opponent of sane social reforms which Socialists deride as "melioration" or as futile attempts to shore up an obsolete system, it has consistently disassociated itself from such men as Lord Shaftesbury, who did more to better the conditions of the working classes than anyone who has ever lived.”
“You might perhaps say "melioration," but "improvement" is the proper word. ”
“James G. Frazer, in "The G.lden Bough," demonstrated that the connection between charismatic leadership and the melioration of suffering was historically a close one: many primitive peoples believed that the magical virtues of a priest-king could guarantee the soil's fertility and that such a leader could therefore alleviate one of the most elementary forms of suffering, hunger.”
“The various terms they have tried -- "Islamic extremism," "Islamism," "Islamofascism" -- have fallen short of both clarity and melioration.”
“On the binary-melioration scale, the digicognizence of the most promising genus (locally referred to as Homo Sapiens Sapiens) has progressed from 6 (see report Sol-4960) to the current value of 21.”
365 tomorrows » Sol-5210 : A New Free Flash Fiction SciFi Story Every Day
“What does seem surprising is that in Academe, unlike “Real Life” continuing experience and maturation does not produce the melioration of radical viewpoints.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Interesting Study on Professors’ Ideology:
“But Aristotle seems to be against this opinion, who hath observed that oil grows sweeter by being kept in vessels not exactly filled, and afterwards ascribes this melioration to the air; for more air, and therefore more powerful to produce the effect, flows into a vessel not well filled.”
“One major exception to such promises of melioration, of course, involves the resurgent focus on the relatively lower IQ scores of African Americans.”
“It is not mutual in effect, for it does not provide for a melioration of _our_ obligations in internal differences now prevailing in, or which may hereafter arise in, Great”
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862 Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘melioration’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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Words that I love and don't know what...
viridescent, butyraceous, abcedarian, propaedeutic, zenzizenzizenzic, euphausiid, melioration, eisegesis, vertiginous, homunculus, chevrotain, prelapsarian and 3 more...
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M
muliebrity, mulierose, marquetry, melioration, mendacious, metaphrase, mirabilia, mirabiliary, modish, monition, morigerate, mentation and 28 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for melioration.
recombinantdna "Yes, personally speaking too, art heightens life. She gives deeper joy, she consumes more swiftly," -Death in Venice, Thomas Mann Feb 4, 2010