Meanings
- uncountableBetterment; improvement.
[I]t [private education] becomes the puffer vp to pride in the recluſe, and the direction to diſdaine, by dreaming ſtill of betterſhip: […]
1581, Richard Mulcaster, “Of the Training Vp of Yong Gentlemen. Of Priuate and Publike Education, with Their Generall Goods & Illes. […]”, in Positions wherin Those Primitive Circvmstances be Examined, which are Necessarie for the Training Vp of Children, either for Skill in Their Booke, or Health in Their Bodie. […], London: […] Thomas Vautrollier for Thomas Chare [i.e., Chard], →OCLC, page 1872 more examples
[…] to all kinds of labour and servitude, where after experiencing degradation, contempt, and stinted allowance of food, which the unnatural spirit of aristocratic bettership engenders, they often exchange a bad state for a worse, from oppression to prostitution, […]
1818, Sherwin’s Political Register, volume III, page 395Time properly brings changes, but to those of us who have shared the spiritual responsibilities of such a Committee, its experiences have contributed conspicuously of bettership in our lives.
1922, The Friend, volume 95, page 591Synonyms: betterhood
Synonyms & antonyms
nounBetterment; improvement.
Origin
From better + -ship. Compare West Frisian betterskip.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
bettership. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bettership
“bettership.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bettership. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bettership,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bettership.
Source: bettership on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.