- present participle of mend.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of mending
Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; see origin at mend, -ing 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:
The court previously heard Dyson had been living in his car outside Wright's cottage on Sheffield Road in Hoyland, often helping him with various jobs like cutting hedges, mending tractors and driving him to appointments.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
The company has made some progress mending relationships with retailers in the U.S., where sales have improved.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
One of the biggest stars of the era was Shirley Temple, a sweet, ringleted child who comforted audiences by mending rifts in families and melting the hearts of tough guys.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 21, 2026
"You don't get many people mending raw cashmere," said Wade, whose role is to meticulously inspect and darn any defects in the fabric by hand, before it is washed, cut and shipped around the world.
From Barron's ● Feb. 20, 2026
She looked up from the table where she was mending an old pair of trousers.
From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler
The seams were white, the edges curled, the buttonholes torn in spite of many mendings; the whole presenting to the most unobservant eyes the heart-breaking stigmas of honest penury.
From The Brotherhood of Consolation by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
The tire was already somewhat of a patched affair, bearing evidences of former punctures and mendings.
From The Rival Campers Ashore The Mystery of the Mill by Ruel Perley Smith
At two she made a little toilette for dinner, and was employed on numberless household darnings and mendings in the long evenings while her sisters giggled over the jingling piano.
From Boys and girls from Thackeray by Kate Dickinson Sweetser
Evidently the system of upkeep in vogue was the system employed in the case of Trishkin's coat—the system of cutting up the cuffs and the collar into mendings for the elbows.
From Dead Souls by D. J. Hogarth
For what are coarse material mendings to the æsthetic soul yearning after the infinite, and worshipping at the feet of the prophet?
From Modern Women and What is Said of Them A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) by Lucia Gilbert Calhoun
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.
