meliorate
Americanverb (used with or without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of meliorate
1545–55; < Latin meliōrātus (past participle of meliōrāre ) to make better, improve, equivalent to meliōr- (stem of melior ) better + -ātus -ate 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:
“I consider such easy vehicles of knowledge, more happily calculated than any other, to preserve the liberty, stimulate the industry and meliorate the morals of an enlightened and free People.”
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 15, 2021
This Howard felt, and, by his efforts to meliorate their condition, he became the acknowledged prince of philanthropists, and earned an immortal and sacred fame.
From Recollections of Windsor Prison; Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious Reflection by John N. Reynolds
Among the various improvements which struggling humanity has gradually engrafted on the belligerent code, none have contributed more to diminish the calamities of war, than those which meliorate the condition of prisoners.
From The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 Commander in Chief of the American Forces During the War which Established the Independence of his Country and First President of the United States by John Marshall
He did this very unwillingly, for it was his desire to do every thing in his power to meliorate the condition of his Protestant friends.
From Henry IV, Makers of History by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
The face of the planet cools and dries, the races meliorate, and man is born.
From The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature Representative Prose and Verse by Various
In like manner, are the woods meliorated and made ours.
From Tablets by Amos Bronson Alcott
Such Men there always have been & always will be, till human Nature itself shall be substantially meliorated.
From The Writings of Samuel Adams - Volume 4 by Harry Alonzo Cushing
But it is the author's law and the author's order that are in dispute—his transmutation of species, the higher classes emerging from and partly annihilating the lower, under meliorated conditions of being.
From An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" With a Notice of the Author's "Explanations:" A Sequel to the Vestiges by Anonymous
The love of power was his ruling passion;—with him no gentle or generous sentiment meliorated the harshness of authority, or directed it to acts of beneficence.
From A Sicilian Romance by Ann Ward Radcliffe
Thus I find my grandfather writing, in a report on the North Esk Bridge: “A less waterway might have sufficed, but the valleys may come to be meliorated by drainage.”
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson
She is peculiarly adapted to carry forward enterprises which have to do with meliorating the condition of society.
From True Woman, The A Series of Discourses by Justin D. Fulton
That period, however, was only eight months distant, and she pleased herself with the intention of meliorating her plan in the meantime, and preparing to put it in practice.
From Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 1 by Fanny Burney
Beginning by formulating plans for meliorating the condition of the slaves on his plantation in French Guiana, his philanthropic thoughts soon turned homeward.
From Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History by Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
Perhaps next in importance in meliorating the condition of the slaves, is the adoption of regulations for their religious instruction, and the education of their children.
From The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 by Various
Agriculture appeared to me to be in a highly improved state: there are artificial grasses and meliorating crops.
From A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium by Richard Boyle Bernard
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.