MEND • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Mend

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verb

Mend v. t. (past & past part. mended; pres. part. mending)

To repair, as anything that is torn, broken, defaced, decayed, or the like; to restore from partial decay, injury, or defacement; to patch up; to put in shape or order again; to re-create; as, to mend a garment or a machine.

To alter for the better; to set right; to reform; hence, to quicken; as, to mend one's manners or pace. "The best service they could do the state was to mend the lives of the persons who composed it."

To help, to advance, to further; to add to. "Though in some lands the grass is but short, yet it mends garden herbs and fruit." "You mend the jewel by the wearing it."

Synonyms: To improve; help; better; emend; amend; correct; rectify; reform.

Mend v. i. To grow better; to advance to a better state; to become improved; to recover; to heal.

on the mend pred. a. recovering from an illness or injury.

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Etymology of 'Mend'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mend" Quotes from Famous Books

... old seamstress who came to my parents' house once a week, every Thursday, to mend the linen. My parents lived in one of those country houses called chateaux, which are merely old houses with pointed roofs, to which are attached three or four ...

— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... SUPPLY.—We hear much these days about the high cost of living, but thus far we have made no move to mend the situation. With coal going straight up to ten dollars per ton, beef going up to fifteen dollars per hundred on the hoof and wheat and hay going-up—heaven alone knows where, it is time for all Americans who are not rich to arouse and take thought for the morrow. What ...

— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... from Pope down have been busy trying to mend the grammar and the rhythm of this line. But in Shakespeare the full pause has often the value of a syllable, and the omission of the relative is common in Elizabethan ...

— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... so? Methought anon you saw me go down with three pikes in my breast. Come, come, godson Giles, speech will not mend it! Thou art but a green, town-bred lad, a mother's darling, and mayst be a brave man yet, only don't dread to tell the honest truth that you were afeard, as many a ...

— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... from the stage; and, of course, no second emotion of the kind awaits me. The exertion and exposure of the performance gave me a violent cold and sore throat, and I have been obliged to send for a doctor. I had two rehearsals yesterday, which did not mend matters, but I have bolstered myself up pro tem., and what with inhaling hot water and swathing my throat in cold, and lozenges and gargles, etc., I hope to fight through without breaking down.... I have heard from Catherine ...

— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

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