amend
noun · verb
Simple meaning
An act of righting a wrong.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhmehndSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əˈmɛnd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
usually in the plural
An act of righting a wrong; compensation.
informalof a documentusually in the plural
An alteration or change for the better; correction of a fault or of faults; reformation of life by quitting vices.
verb
transitive
To make better; improve.
transitive
To make a formal alteration (in legislation, a report, etc.) by adding, deleting, or rephrasing.
intransitive
To become better.
Make amendments to
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An act of righting a wrong; compensation.
Used this way, amend is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- remedy , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use amend
- “They will amend the old proposal to include new safety features.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A sum of money paid in compensation for loss or injury.
Of legislation.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The act of amending or correcting.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A tax return that corrects the information in an earlier return.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: righting a wrong
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.