ameliorate
verb
Did you know?
Ameliorate traces back to melior, a Latin adjective meaning "better," and is a rather formal synonym of the verbs better and improve. When is it better to use ameliorate? Allow us to improve your understanding: if a situation is bad, ameliorate indicates that the conditions have been made more tolerable. Thus, one might refer to medicine that ameliorates pain from an injury, a loss of wages ameliorated by unemployment benefits, or a harsh law ameliorated by special exceptions. Improve and better apply when something bad is getting better or being made better (as in "the weather improved" or "she bettered her lot in life"), and they should always be chosen over ameliorate when something good is getting better still ("he improved his successful program," "she bettered her impressive scores").
Synonyms
Examples of ameliorate in a Sentence
Edward F. Sherman, Texas Law Review, June 1998
And, after all, some illnesses are psychogenic. Many can be at least ameliorated by a positive cast of mind.
—Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, 1996
trying to ameliorate the suffering of people who have lost their jobs
This medicine should help ameliorate the pain.
Mohanad Hage Ali, Foreign Affairs, 1 Nov. 2024
Carbonic anhydrase inhibition ameliorates tau toxicity via enhanced tau secretion.
—Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, 31 Oct. 2024
However, the analysis does not include increases in wage rises that ameliorate some of these costs.
—Thomas G. Moukawsher, Newsweek, 5 Nov. 2024
But Turton said All3Media’s size and production capacity — the group operates across six countries — gives it economies of scale that ameliorate the inherent risk.
—Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for ameliorate 
Dictionary Entries Near ameliorate
Cite this Entry
“Ameliorate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ameliorate. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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ameliorate
verb
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