emend
Americanverb (used with object)
-
emends,
present (3rd person singular)
-
emended,
past participle, past
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emending
present participle
-
to edit or change (a text).
-
to free from faults or errors; correct.
verb
Synonym Usage
See amend.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
emendsimple
-
emendssimple
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have emendedperfect
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has emendedperfect
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am emendingprogressive
-
are emendingprogressive
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is emendingprogressive
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have been emendingperfect progressive
-
has been emendingperfect progressive
Past
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emendedsimple
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had emendedperfect
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was emendingprogressive
-
were emendingprogressive
-
had been emendingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of emend
1375–1425; late Middle English (< Middle French emender ) < Latin ēmendāre “to correct,” equivalent to ē- e- 1 + mend(um) “fault” + -āre infinitive suffix
Explanation
When you emend a piece of writing, you correct or revise it. If you are asked to emend a report, that just means you need to go through it and make revisions. Emend is similar in spelling and pronunciation to another word, amend, and there’s a slight overlap in meaning as well. Emend refers to changes and improvements made to a text. Amend also can refer to making minor changes to a text, but it can be used to describe improvements made to other things as well — for example, you can amend a situation. In contrast, emend’s powers are limited to words. So if you’re using emend — the one with the "e" — just make sure you’re describing improvements that involve text.
Vocabulary lists containing emend
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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:
Bowman lived in New York, and had no children—surely it wasn’t much to ask for him to emend a plan?
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 2, 2019
In his 1897 novel, “An Antarctic Mystery,” he saw fit to emend Poe, rescuing Pym from the boiling sea only to kill him off on a lodestone mountain.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 17, 2017
But writers also seem driven to confront, reinterpret and emend the canon.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 27, 2013
The final bill that President Roosevelt took down the Potomac was still studded with question marks and blank spaces for him to emend.
From Time Magazine Archive
Mr. Wallace proposes to emend the last clause to read: "te theatre off te cijn off te Swan," thus making "cijn" mean "sign"; but is not this Flemish, and does not "cijn" mean "Swan"?
From Shakespearean Playhouses A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration by Joseph Quincy Adams
Experience accumulates and man's knowledge grows; the expectation and joy in progress is a part of it; man's code changes, emends, expands with his onward marching.
From Preaching and Paganism by Albert Parker Fitch
So the first edition, and the Hampshire and Winchester Editions; but Bentley emends to 'Sèvres,' which must surely be correct.
From Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters A Family Record by William Austen-Leigh
The chronological impossibility involved in the figure is removed by Mohl who emends it to 260.
From Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part I by G. K. (Gushtaspshah Kaikhushro) Nariman
B. emends and renders: Nor was there any man in that desert who rejoiced in conflict, in battle-work.
From Beowulf An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem by Lesslie Hall
By water, with most editors, emends the text.
From Aristotle on the art of poetry by Ingram Bywater
The Nicene Creed, formulated under Emperor Constantine in AD 325 and emended in AD 381, stated bluntly that Christ “was crucified under Pontius Pilate.”
From Time ● Mar. 30, 2016
However, fasciole 14 of the AAS for 1930 emended the text and seems to have withdrawn the formal condemnation of punitive sterilization. a subject of theological discussion at the time.
From Moral Theology A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Best Modern Authorities by Charles Jerome Callan
The following were identified as spelling or typographic errors and have been emended as noted.
From The Trimming of Goosie by James Hopper
The poet constantly emended this poem; he seldom reprinted it without minor changes, usually for the better.
From The Poems of Philip Freneau, Volume I (of III) by Philip Freneau
During the last two years, apart from much else, I have emended the Letters of St. Jerome, obelizing what was false and spurious and explaining the obscure passages with notes.
From Erasmus and the Age of Reformation by Johan Huizinga
It’s rife with typos and misspellings and sprinkled with attempts at emending them.
From New York Times ● Nov. 11, 2014
"It’s rife with typos and misspellings and sprinkled with attempts at emending them."
From New York Times ● Nov. 11, 2014
Impasse," the Governor says, like a finicky lexicographer emending an improper usage, "means no progress.
From Time Magazine Archive
“They can’t leave them,” said I, and then, emending: “We. We cannot be.”
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Several verbs ending in t or d have all but dropped the emending in the past tense.
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
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.
