amend (amend)

[ Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Jer. vii. 3. Thou hearest thy faults told thee, amend them, amend them. Latimer , Sermon of the Plough. IMG:content-0615.png:[blocks in formation] The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instructions. Shak ., M. of V., iii. 1. The text should be emended so as to read "tetragon us sine vituperio," a square without a fault, which I have no doubt may be found in some Latin Aristotle. N. and Q., 7th ser., I. 65. He that lacks time to mourn lacks time to mend; Eternity mourns that. Sir H. Taylor , Philip Van Artevelde, I., i. 4. There are certain defects of taste which correct them- selves by their own extravagance. Lowell , Study Windows, p. 401. Reform'd my will, and rectify'd my thought. Sir J. Davies, Introd. to Immortal. of Soul. Some men, from a false persuasion that they cannot re form their lives and root out their old vicious habits, never so much as attempt, endeavour, or go about it. South . It is a cheering thought throughout life, that something can be done to ameliorate the condition of those who have been subject to the hard usages of the world. Lincoln, in Raymond, p. 470. II. in trans. 1. To grow or become better by reformation, or by rectifying something wrong in manners or morals. Anything that's mended is but patched: virtue that transgre es is but patched with sin; and sin that amends is but patched with virtue. Shak ., T. N., i. 5. 2. To become better (in health); recover from illne . Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. John iv. 52. amend (a-mend'), n. [Sing. of amends, q. v.] Compensation: generally used in the plural. See amends. And so to Finland's sorrow The sweet amend is made. Whittier, Conquest of Finland. amendable (a-men'da-bl), a. [ able , amendable , dare , correct: see amend , v., and cf. emendable .] Capable of being amended or corrected: as, an amendable writ or error.