emend

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ēmenden,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Latin ēmendō (“to free from fault, correct, improve”),^[6][7][4][5] which is formed from ē- (“out”), a form of ex-, and mendum (“fault, blemish”), also menda.^[6][7][4][5] Old French had esmender and emender,^[6] which the Middle English Dictionary and Weekley name beside the Latin as a source.^[2][8] Amend came from the same Latin verb through Old French,^[4] and Barnhart calls the two doublets.^[5] He also relates the Latin noun to mendāx (“lying, deceitful”) and mendīcus (“beggar”), the source of mendicant.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To repair or make good: a will of 1411 provides money In emendynge of weys around the manor of Bradfield.^[2][6] Etymonline dates the word to about 1400 in the sense "remove faults from".^[7]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the verb covered mending roads, making a person better, curing a disease and correcting a written work.^[2] The textual sense has an early record in a translation of Higden that the Middle English Dictionary dates perhaps before 1425, in which two men are ordered to emende the bokes,^[2][5] though the OED and Hoad date the sense of removing errors from a text only to the 18th century.^[6][9] The senses "mend" and "correct a person" had died out by the 1540s.^[6] The general sense of correcting anything faulty is now rare or archaic,^[6][3] which leaves the verb largely to editors of texts,^[10][11] as with emendation, which Weekley says is used only of textual corrections.^[8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records altering a literary work for a purpose different from the original.^[3]

Timeline

• 1411 – to repair, mend (obsolete after 1480).^[6][2]
• before 1425 (perhaps) – to correct a written work.^[2][5]
• c. 1450 – to free a person from faults (obsolete after 1542).^[6]
• c. 1485 – to free a thing from faults, rectify.^[6]
• 1769 – to remove errors from the text of a book or document.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To correct a text by critical editing, removing errors and corruptions: The editor emended two garbled lines of the poem.^{[10][3][11][6]}
2. To alter a literary work so that it serves a purpose different from the original.^[3]
3. (archaic) To free from faults or defects; to correct or improve.^[3][6][11]
4. (obsolete, 1411–1480) To repair or make good what is broken or damaged; to mend.^[6][2]
5. (obsolete, c. 1450–1542) To free a person from faults; to make better.^[6][2]

Word family

• emender
• emendable
• unemended
• emendation

Related words

• amend
• mend
• mendicant
• emendate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press