amend

present singular third person amends · participle present amending · participle past amended · past amended · first person past singular amended · archaic present second person singular amendest · past second person singular amended · archaic past second person singular amendedst · present singular third person amends · archaic present singular third person amendeth · past singular third person amended · past plural amended · past subjunctive amended · participle present amending · participle past amended

1. transitiveTo make better; improve.

   We shall cheer her sorrows, and amend her blood, by wedding her to a Norman.

   1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XIII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC

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   Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee; Mar not the thing that cannot be amended.

   1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC

   I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

2. intransitiveTo become better.

   The teacher sat at one end of the bench, with a meek little fellow by his side. When the others were disorderly, this young martyr received a rap; intended, probably, as a sample of what the rest might expect, if they didn't amend.

   1847 March 30, Herman Melville, Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas; […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC

3. obsoletetransitiveTo heal (someone sick); to cure (a disease etc.).

   he gave her a vomit, and conveyed a serpent, such as she conceived, into the basin; upon the sight of it she was amended.

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 2, member 6, subsection ii

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   But Paridell complaynd, that his late fight / With Britomart, so sore did him offend, / That ryde he could not, till his hurts he did amend.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

4. intransitiveobsoleteTo be healed, to be cured, to recover (from an illness).

   Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure: their malady convinces The great assay of art; but at his touch— Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand— They presently amend.

   c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]

5. transitiveTo make a formal alteration (in legislation, a report, etc.) by adding, deleting, or rephrasing.

   We amended the rules so that we could admit 20 more members to the club.

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   The following motions cannot be amended:

   1876, Henry Martyn Robert, Robert’s Rules of Order, Chicago: S.C. Griggs & Co., Article III, Section 23, p. 46

   1990, Doug Hoyle, Hansard, Trade Union Act, 1984, Amendment no. 2, 4 July, 1990, It is necessary to amend the Act to preserve the spirit in which it was first passed into law […]

plural amends

1. plural normallyAn act of righting a wrong; compensation.

   Did I owe him an amend? Probably not, but I did owe myself an amend. I did this by ceasing to resent.

   2011, Bill Fifield, Sandy Fifield, Dig Deep in One Place: A Couple's Journey to a Spiritual Life, page 100

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   Thus by the code of the Visigoths, it was forbidden to all strangers to take their subjects under a penalty of one hundred lashes and an amend in gold.

   1813, John Elihu Hall, “Of Mariners”, in The American Law Journal, volume 4

   It was her offer of surrender as an amend that, persuading him of her shining honesty, had aroused in him something akin to worship and had made an end of that cynical spirit in which for worldly ends he had aimed at marrying her.

   2008, Raphael Sabatini, Chivalry, page 114

   The point was, I wasn't really willing to make the amend, to make it right. But the point of an amend, as I understand it now, is to make it right for the person who was wringed, to the best of our ability, and in so doing, making it right for ourselves.

   2013, M. T., A Sponsorship Guide for 12-Step Programs, page 120

2. abbreviationclippinginformalplural normallyClipping of amendment (“alteration or change for the better”).

   I've sent over a new version of the doc with some amends.

plural Amends

1. A surname.