melioration

American  

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

noun

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

2. amelioration.

---

Etymology

Origin of melioration

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

Example Sentences

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

From BusinessWeek • Nov. 22, 2011

All is quiet in Holland and Belgium; and all is awaiting the melioration which time and wisdom must bring.

From Graham's Magazine, Vol XXXIII, No. 6, December 1848 by Various

He demanded seven hundred pounds for the ground, and to be excused paying anything for the melioration of the rest of his ground that he was to keep.

From Old and New London Volume I by Thornbury, Walter

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 Burke, Edmund

Whether they do any thing to the Metal, after it is once brought to Fusion, and, if need be, melt it over again, to give it a melioration?

From Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 Giving some Accompt of the present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in many considerable parts of the World by Oldenburg, Henry