bettering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of better.

   Bettering one's circumstances often takes years of patient effort.

   The committee focused on bettering conditions for factory workers.

   Note

   Each full-verb use of better has this -ing form: improving something (bettering one's prospects), growing better (her health kept bettering), and surpassing (bettering a rival's time). As a gerund it keeps the verb's grammar and takes its object directly, with no "of". That is the easiest way to tell it from the noun meaning improvement.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or process of making something better in quality, condition, or value; an improvement.

   The steady bettering of working conditions raised morale across the factory.

   Education contributes to the bettering of society as a whole.

   Similarimprovement, betterment, enhancement, advancement

   Oppositeworsening, deterioration, decline

   Note

   A noun with a long pedigree: Middle English beterynge, simply better plus -ing. Unlike the gerund, it behaves like an ordinary noun. It takes an article, links to its object with of (the bettering of society), and can be counted, so betterings is a genuine plural. "Bettering conditions" and "the bettering of conditions" say the same thing in two different grammars.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2