amend

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English amenden,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Anglo-Norman amaunder, also amender, as in Old French amender (“to correct, set right, improve”),^[6][2][7] which is from Latin ēmendō (“to free from fault, correct”) with a change of prefix.^[6][4][8][9] Barnhart attributes the a- to the influence of a Vulgar Latin prefix standing for ad- (“to”),^[4] and Hoad and Ayto reconstruct Vulgar Latin *admendō;^[10][11] the OED compares the same substitution in Old Occitan amendar and Italian ammendare.^[6][9] The Latin verb is from ē- (“out of”), a form of ex-, and menda (“fault, blemish”), also mendum,^[2][4][3][9] from Proto-Indo-European *mend- (“physical defect, fault”),^[2] the source also of Old Irish mennar (“stain, blemish”), Welsh mann (“sign, mark”) and Hittite mant- (“something harming”).^[2][9] Merriam-Webster relates it to mendāx (“lying, false”) and mendīcus (“beggar”).^[12] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1113–19, already for correcting, reforming, making amends, mending and curing.^[7] The shortened mend came from the French verb and is recorded in English slightly earlier,^[6][11] and emend is a doublet borrowed straight from Latin.^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To correct a text, to remove its errors: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle;^[6] Barnhart dates the word probably before 1200 in the same work,^[4] and Etymonline to the early 13th century, "to free from faults, rectify".^[2]

Semantic evolution

Middle English used the verb broadly, as French did: to correct something faulty (about 1230), to repair something broken (before 1250), to reform a person or oneself morally (before 1275), to chastise (about 1300 to 1500), to heal (about 1300) and, intransitively, to recover from illness (from about 1325; obsolete by 1920).^[6] Most of the physical senses, "repair" and "cure", passed to its shortened form mend,^[2][13] and Johnson (1755) already noted that mend was the usual form for correcting and reforming.^[14] The legal sense, to correct an error in a writ or plea, appears in 1456 in the Paston Letters,^[6] and altering a bill or law by adding, removing or rewording a clause in 1566, in the Journals of the House of Commons;^[6] Etymonline dates this legislative sense only from 1777.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – to correct the errors in a text.^[6]
• c. 1230 – to correct something faulty.^[6]
• before 1250 – to repair something broken (now rare).^[6]
• before 1275 – to reform a person morally; to mend one's ways.^[6]
• c. 1300 – to chastise (obsolete by 1500); to heal a person.^[6]
• 1456 – in law, to correct an error in a legal process.^[6]
• 1566 – to alter a piece of legislation.^[6]
• 1777 – the legislative sense, by Etymonline's date.^[2]
• 1858 – to correct a previous statement.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To change a law, constitution, motion or document formally by adding, removing or rewording part of it: The council amended the bylaw to allow food trucks.^[15][12][6]
2. To put right; to correct faults or errors in something.^[15][12][6]
3. To change for the better; to improve.^[15][12]
4. (archaic) To reform a person morally; to mend one's ways.^[12][6][8]
5. (archaic) To repair or restore.^[12][6]

Word family

• amendable
• amender
• amendment
• reamend

Related words

• emend
• mend
• amends
• mendacious
• mendicant

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins