The Collaborative International Dictionary
Meliorate \Mel"io*rate\ (m[=e]l"y[-o]*r[=a]t), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Meliorated (m[=e]l"y[-o]*r[=a]`t[e^]d); p. pr. & vb. n. Meliorating.] [L. melioratus, p. p. of meliorare to meliorate, fr. melior better; akin to Gr. ma^llon rather, ma`la very. Cf. Ameliorate.] To make better; to improve; to ameliorate; to soften; to make more tolerable.
Nature by art we nobly meliorate.
--Denham.
The pure and benign light of revelation has had a
meliorating influence on mankind.
--Washington.
Meliorate \Mel"io*rate\, v. i. To grow better.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1550s, "to make better," back-formation from melioration or else from Late Latin melioratus, past participle of Latin meliorare "improve," from melior "better," used as comparative of bonus "good," but probably originally meaning "stronger," from PIE root *mel- "strong, great, numerous" (see multi-). Related: Meliorated; meliorating; melioration; meliorative.
Wiktionary
vb. (context transitive English) To make better, to improve; to heal or solve a problem.
WordNet
v. to make better; "The editor improved the manuscript with his changes" [syn: better, improve, amend, ameliorate] [ant: worsen]
get better; "The weather improved toward evening" [syn: better, improve, ameliorate] [ant: worsen]
Usage examples of "meliorate".
We thought that they were capable of receiving and meliorating, and above all of preserving, the accessions of science and literature, as the order of Providence should successively produce them.
What improvements they have had in their passage (as it is said some liquors are meliorated by crossing the sea) I cannot tell.
They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they had then settled forever.
The days when even those harsh customs, in practice, were often meliorated by kinder—or, at least, laxer—potentates.
The days when even those harsh customs, in practice, were often meliorated by kinderor, at least, laxerpotentates.
Something the Meliorates with their scattershot approach to eugenics did not themselves foresee.
But I saw no crimes in the individuals that merited confiscation of their substance, nor those cruel insults and degradations, and that unnatural persecution which have been substituted in the place of meliorating regulation.
But in the country, where, it will be remembered, the first blood ever spilled by the hand of a murderer cried up to Heaven from the ground, and where the meliorating circumstances we have named as incident to congregated life are almost wholly wanting, man is left to brood in solitude over his real or fancied wrongs, till all the fierce and stormy passions of his nature become aroused, and hurry him unchecked along to the fatal outbreak.
It was pointed out that because the Wais were so polite and correct, their presence and indeed their society itself had a meliorating effect on the more contentious members of the Weave, where everyone lived in fear of giving casual offense to his neighbor.
It is evident now that your youth is not overmuch of a meliorating factor.
The philosopher Croce traces this uncivilized strain to an event in Roman times, the victory of Arminius in therm Teutoburg Forest, which cut off the Germans from the meliorating influence of Roman law and manners.