melioration

American  

[meel-yuh-ray-shuhn, mee-lee-uh-] / ˌmil jəˈreɪ ʃən, ˌmi li ə- /

noun

1. Historical Linguistics. semantic change in a word to a more approved or more respectable meaning.

2. amelioration.

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melioration British  

/ ˌmiːlɪəˈreɪʃən /

noun

1. the act or an instance of improving or the state of being improved

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Etymology

Origin of melioration

1620–30; < Late Latin meliōrātiōn- (stem of meliōrātiō ), equivalent to meliōrāt ( us ) ( see meliorate) + -iōn- -ion

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

melioration

But professional reformation or melioration is usually an organic, incremental process.

From BusinessWeek ● Nov. 22, 2011

In these small communities, which are never agitated by the desire of aggrandizement or the cares of self-defence, all public authority and private energy is employed in internal melioration.

From American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville

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

It must be shown that it is right, though imperfect,—that it is not only by possibility susceptible of improvement, but that it contains in it a principle tending to its melioration.

From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

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 Joseph Priestley

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