improvement
English
Alternative forms
- emprovement (obsolete)
Etymology
From Anglo-Norman emprouwement; synchronically improve + -ment.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ɪmˈpɹuːvm(ə)nt/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ɪmˈpɹuvmənt/
Audio (GA) (file) - Hyphenation: im‧prove‧ment
Noun
improvement (countable and uncountable, plural improvements)
- The act of improving; advancement or growth; a bettering
- (Can we date this quote by Robert South?)
- I look upon your city as the best place of improvement.
- (Can we date this quote by Hugh Blair?)
- Exercise is the chief source of improvement in all our faculties.
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 19, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
- Nothing was too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common welfare. Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally visited dust-bins and back premises, accompanied by a sort of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer doing billets.
- 2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:
- Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. […] Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster. Clever financial ploys are what have made billionaires of the industry’s veterans. “Operational improvement” in a portfolio company has often meant little more than promising colossal bonuses to sitting chief executives if they meet ambitious growth targets. That model is still prevalent today.
- (Can we date this quote by Robert South?)
- The act of making profitable use or application of anything, or the state of being profitably employed; practical application, for example of a doctrine, principle, or theory, stated in a discourse.
- (Can we date this quote by Samuel Clarke?)
- A good improvement of his reason.
- (Can we date this quote by John Tillotson?)
- I shall make some improvement of this doctrine.
- (Can we date this quote by Samuel Clarke?)
- The state of being improved; betterment; advance
- Something which is improved
- the new edition is an improvement on the old.
- (Can we date this quote by Joseph Addison?)
- The parts of Sinon, Camilla, and some few others, are improvements on the Greek poet.
- Increase; growth; progress; advance.
- (Can we date this quote by Joseph Addison?)
- There is a design of publishing the history of architecture, with its several improvements and decays.
- (Can we date this quote by Robert South?)
- Those vices which more particularly receive improvement by prosperity.
- (Can we date this quote by Joseph Addison?)
- (in the plural) Valuable additions or betterments, for example buildings, clearings, drains, fences, etc., on premises.
- (Patent Laws): A useful addition to, or modification of, a machine, manufacture, or composition.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Translations
act of improving
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References
improvement in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
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