- present participle of mend.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of mending
Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; see origin at mend, -ing 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A pile of mending projects in my sewing room filled a shelf.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
"You don't get many people mending raw cashmere," said Wade, whose role is to meticulously inspect and darn any defects in the fabric by hand, before it is washed, cut and shipped around the world.
From Barron's ● Feb. 20, 2026
After Hasina's fall, Dhaka wasted little time in mending fences with Islamabad.
From BBC ● Feb. 14, 2026
But inviting us to sit down with a show about mental health professionals mending their spirits is group therapy on a massive scale in a time of diagnosable disorder.
From Salon ● Feb. 7, 2026
Pa spun into a fixing frenzy repairing tack, mending his boots, and moving from room to room tending to all the things he’d let go during planting season.
From "Worth" by A. LaFaye
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All my makings and mendings and turnings are done at home by a clever little workwoman, under my own superintendance, and I am most careful and economical.
From Notable Women Authors of the Day Biographical Sketches by Helen C. Black
Their pieces of clothing appear like new mendings on old rags, or like a substantial shawl thrown over scanty vestments.
From The Delight Makers by Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier
For what are coarse material mendings to the æsthetic soul yearning after the infinite, and worshipping at the feet of the prophet?
From Modern Women and What is Said of Them A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) by Lucia Gilbert Calhoun
Amongst his various mendings of old shoes at Callerton.
From Lives of the Engineers The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson by Samuel Smiles
Had she not clothes enough to last her with patient mendings and persistent remakings for two years?
From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.