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
Will this rapid intellectual progress tend ultimately to meliorate the condition of mankind?
From Curiosities of Medical Experience by J. G. (John Gideon) Millingen
Now, our Government has never departed from its purpose and its policy, to meliorate the law of nations, so as to extirpate this business of private war on the ocean.
From Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York by A. F. Warburton
Let us never relax in our exertions to promote the emancipation, and meliorate the condition of slaves, till every human being in these United States shall equally enjoy, all the blessings of our free Institutions.
From The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 by Various
Kindness never fails to soften and meliorate his feelings, and harshness, injury, and contempt to harden and blunt them.
From The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
It has greatly meliorated the condition of the laborious part, that is to say, of the mass of every community, by procuring for them a day of weekly rest.
From Evidence of Christianity by William Paley
We pass over the administration of Geary, the third of the Kansas Governors,—a period in which the ravages of the marauders were continued, but under meliorated circumstances.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 04, February, 1858 by Various
Their opposition will only multiply its millions of human victims; their own satellites will catch it, and the condition of man through the civilized world, will be finally and greatly meliorated.
From Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1 by Thomas Jefferson Randolph
In this manner soils are constantly changing upon the same spot; sometimes they are meliorated, at other times impoverished.
From Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) by James Hutton
Among the better classes conventionality has, doubtless, somewhat meliorated their condition.
From The Land of Thor by J. Ross (John Ross) Browne
And many a thousand summers My apples ripened well, And light from meliorating stars With firmer glory fell.
From May-Day and Other Pieces by Ralph Waldo Emerson
It was a meliorating thought, and while it held I could be less revengeful.
From The Master of Appleby A Novel Tale Concerning Itself in Part with the Great Struggle in the Two Carolinas; but Chiefly with the Adventures Therein of Two Gentlemen Who Loved One and the Same Lady by Francis Lynde
As with everything else, so it is with fruits, some of which were naturally indifferent or even inedible, until subjected to the meliorating influences of high culture, of selection, and of improvement.
From American Pomology Apples by J. A. Warder
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
One of his meliorating comforts had been the thought that however bitter his own disappointment was, Elinor at least was happy.
From The Grafters by Francis Lynde
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.
