English
amend
Amend comes from Old French amender ‘to correct’, and goes back to Latin ēmendō ‘free from faults’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEēmendō‘free from faults’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400amender‘to correct’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500amenden
- Englishearliest quotation 1590amend
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEēmendō‘free from faults’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400amender‘to correct’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500amenden
- Englishearliest quotation 1590amend
Earliest quotation: 1590, Edmund Spenser, Book III, Canto X: “But Paridell complaynd, that his late fight / With…”
A compound of ex ‘from, out of’ + mendum ‘fault’
Proto-Indo-European *h₁eǵʰs ‘out’
Proto-Italic *eks
Latin ex ‘from, out of’
Proto-Indo-European *men- ‘to think’
Proto-Indo-European *mend- ‘physical defect, fault’
Latin mendum ‘fault’
Every English word from Latin ēmendō
Today it means
verb To make better; improve.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin ēmendō / amend