ameliorate
Usage
What are other ways to say ameliorate?
The formal word ameliorate implies improving oppressive, unjust, or difficult conditions: to ameliorate working conditions. Improve usually implies remedying a lack or a felt need: to improve a process, oneself (as by gaining more knowledge). To better is to improve conditions which, though not bad, are unsatisfying: to better an attempt, oneself (as by gaining a higher salary).
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
His writings undergirded his cabinet’s reforms in the 1870s to ameliorate living and working conditions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
Exercising for two hours a day can partially ameliorate this issue, but it doesn’t prevent the problem entirely.
From Slate ● Mar. 1, 2026
Some legislation has been proposed to ameliorate the concerns, or at least lay the legal groundwork for an unconventional quick-turn census.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2025
That is, historically, what presidents have done: Facing volatile circumstances, confronting crises, they summon the powers of their office to explain, to ameliorate, to reassure and above all, to try to calm the situation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2025
No matter how sedulously Ben and Mary Anne prepared for the nightmare, nothing could ameliorate their discomfort at entering a new high school for their annual pilgrimage among strangers.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
But a strange, melancholic case of timing ameliorates the documentary’s primary flaw: It didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.
From Salon ● Dec. 19, 2024
"Overall, greater international co-operation is needed to ensure that ESG and climate transition-related practices progress in a manner that ameliorates the current market fragmentation, and strengthens investor confidence and market integrity."
From Reuters ● Oct. 4, 2021
Charity, while wonderful, ameliorates the symptoms of inequality, but it does not address its root causes.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 27, 2020
You say “at first” you turned down their advances, as if that somehow ameliorates your later decision to accept their advances.
From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2019
Time ameliorates these difficulties, and the wisdom of the undertaking becomes more apparent, while contentment and prosperity rival all other claims.
From An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America by J. P. (John Patterson) MacLean
On that, Buchbinder is optimistic that a key cause of rising rates, higher energy costs, will be ameliorated in coming months.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 14, 2026
The 40-foot elevation drop from the General Hospital forecourt to the commercial hub will be ameliorated by raising the low area about 20 feet.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2026
It would have been a lot to ask that Simkhovitch, idealistic and self-sacrificing, predict that immigrant poverty and its housing conditions would be ameliorated with time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 24, 2026
Medication also ameliorated the physical symptoms of anxiety and hypervigilance.
From BBC ● Jan. 25, 2025
When I began work at the bank I knew that much of their suffering would be ameliorated.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
The $3 million allocation is the first major assistance directed toward ameliorating the spiraling humanitarian crisis since people first began arriving at the church last December.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 6, 2023
In 2018, Congress took a small step toward ameliorating this problem.
From Slate ● Oct. 1, 2023
The researchers employed a novel computational method developed earlier by Morgun and Shulzhenko, transkingdom network analysis, to uncover TXN's mechanism for ameliorating metabolic syndrome.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 21, 2023
If Petro can fill the role of a balanced mediator, he stands to gain regionally by reviving commercial relations between Colombia and Venezuela, and internationally by ameliorating one of the hemisphere’s most nagging crises.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 20, 2023
She had a notion about the air down here and its ameliorating effects on the circulation.
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
Vocabulary lists containing ameliorate
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