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
“No great melioration of the human condition was ever achieved without the concurrent effort of numbers; and no extended and well-directed association of moral influence was ever made in vain.”
From Select Temperance Tracts by American Tract Society
It is not mutual in effect, for it does not provide for a melioration of our obligations in internal differences now prevailing in, or which may hereafter arise in, Great Britain.
From The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862 Devoted To Literature And National Policy by Various
Other things, equally if not more contributive to human melioration, are less distinctly in expectation.
From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 by William Chambers
The great melioration of human society which modern times exhibit, is mainly due to the incomplete substitution of the system of voluntary labor for the one of servile labor, which has already taken place.
From American Eloquence, Volume 3 Studies In American Political History (1897) by Alexander Johnston
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.
