melioration
Americannoun
-
Historical Linguistics. semantic change in a word to a more approved or more respectable meaning.
noun
Etymology
Origin of melioration
1620–30; < Late Latin meliōrātiōn- (stem of meliōrātiō ), equivalent to meliōrāt ( us ) ( see meliorate) + -iōn- -ion
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.
But professional reformation or melioration is usually an organic, incremental process.
From BusinessWeek • Nov. 22, 2011
All is quiet in Holland and Belgium; and all is awaiting the melioration which time and wisdom must bring.
From Graham's Magazine, Vol XXXIII, No. 6, December 1848 by Various
Whether they do any thing to the Metal, after it is once brought to Fusion, and, if need be, melt it over again, to give it a melioration?
From Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 Giving some Accompt of the present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in many considerable parts of the World by Oldenburg, Henry
In this case, also, the air has never failed to be restored; but then it might be suspected that the melioration was produced by the addition of some more wholesome ingredient.
From Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air by Priestley, Joseph
May every sun that shines on your green island see the annihilation of an abuse, and the birth of an embryon of melioration!
From Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer by Frederickson, Charles W.
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.
