amendment
Pluralamendments
- 1A change to a bill or motion in a legislative body that adds, alters, replaces, or removes wording.
The committee adopted an amendment that struck two controversial clauses from the bill.
She proposed an amendment to substitute milder wording in the motion.
Similarrevision, modification, alteration, change
Note
Parliaments and assemblies use the word for a proposed change as much as an adopted one. An amendment can be tabled, voted on and lost, as one in the European Parliament was by six votes in 2024. It takes to before what it changes, as in an amendment to Jordan's anti-terrorism law. It can also take an infinitive of purpose: an amendment to remove the provisions.
- 2An addition or change to the Constitution, the foundational law of the nation.
The Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote.
Ratifying an amendment requires approval from three-quarters of the states.
Note
In American usage the word is so bound to the Constitution that an ordinal alone identifies it. The First Amendment and the Thirteenth Amendment are capitalized as names, while general reference stays lowercase, as in ratifying an amendment. The first ten, adopted together in 1791, are known collectively as the Bill of Rights.
- 3A change for the better, especially the correction of a fault or the reform of one's conduct.
The bishop urged amendment of life and a turning away from old vices.
Genuine amendment requires more than apology; it means changing one's habits.
Similarimprovement, reformation
Oppositedeterioration, decline
Note
Built from amend plus -ment, the word came through French amendement from Late Latin amendamentum. Without an article it names a turning from vices, as in amendment of life, and sits close to reformation. With an article it means a single correction of a fault. Improvement is the broader, everyday synonym, while amendment keeps a sense of putting right what was wrong.
- 4Material or content added to increase, improve, or supplement something.
The gardener spread a generous amendment of well-rotted manure across the beds.
Each amendment to the mixture changed its texture and strength.
Similaradditive, supplement, addition
Note
Its most familiar home is the garden. A soil amendment is whatever is worked into the ground to improve it, and the noun often appears in that compound. This sense keeps the word's idea of making something better but makes it physical. It names material added rather than a fault corrected, unlike the moral sense of reform.
- 5The correction of an error in a writ or other legal process.
The judge permitted an amendment to the pleading after spotting a clerical error.
Counsel sought an amendment to correct the misnamed party in the writ.
Similarcorrection, rectification
Note
A lawyer's term for repairing procedure rather than changing the law itself. What gets amended is a writ, a pleading or other process, such as a misnamed party or a clerical slip, so the action can go forward instead of failing on a technicality. Unlike the legislative amendment, which reshapes text a body is voting on, this one corrects a document already in play.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of amendment apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
From French amendement, from Late Latin amendamentum, equivalent to the verb amend plus the suffix -ment.