improve

Less common meanings

4. 4
   make use ofverbdatedtransitive

   To make good or profitable use of something, such as an opportunity or a period of time.

   How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour.

   1715, Isaac Watts, Against Idleness and Mischief

   We shall especially honour God, by discharging faithfully those offices which God hath entrusted us with: by improving diligently those talents which God hath committed to us

   a. 1678 (date written), Isaac Barrow, The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow

   Similaruse, exploit, utilize, employ

   Oppositewaste, squander

   Note

   This sense stays closest to the "profit" behind the everyday "make better" verb. You improve time, means or talents by spending them well, not by changing them. In Isaac Watts's 1715 verse, the little busy bee does "Improve each shining hour": it uses the hour rather than repairing it. Modern readers easily misread the phrase, so in new writing "make good use of" says it safely. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • The profitable-use sense and the everyday make-better sense share an origin involving the meaning 'profit'. en.wiktionary.org
   • The historical sense means using something profitably, supporting the explanation of time, means, talents, and Watts's hour. en.wiktionary.org
   • Watts's verse containing the busy bee and 'Improve each shining hour' was first published in 1715. rpo.library.utoronto.ca
   • The quotation is accurate, and the poem's context supports interpreting it as making good use of time. gutenberg.org
5. 5
   verbobsolete

   To disapprove of someone or something; to find fault with, reprove, or censure.

   Note

   The censuring partner of the "refute" meaning comes from the same Latin root. What one rejects in an argument, one finds fault with in a person or deed. It takes the fault as its object, so the line "You would improve his negligence" in George Chapman's Iliads means rebuke that negligence, not cure it. Likewise, Tyndale's "they coulde improve no thinge" means they found nothing to blame. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

   • The refuting and censuring senses share Latin improbō, meaning disapprove or reject. en.wiktionary.org
   • The quoted line occurs in George Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad; its context supports censure of negligence. gutenberg.org
   • Tyndale used the exact phrase 'they coulde improve no thinge'; it is documented under the censuring sense. en.wiktionary.org
6. 6
   verbobsolete

   To disprove a claim or make it void; to refute it.

   One ſayth this and a nother that / but can not agre. Nether can any of them make ſo ſtronge a reaſon vvhich a nother can not improve.

   1528, William Tyndale, “[Of the Sacramentes.] Of Order.”

   Note

   A different word happens to share the spelling. It comes from Latin improbō, "disapprove, reject," and is a doublet of improbate, with no link to the "profit" verb. William Tyndale wrote in 1528 that no one can make "so stronge a reason which a nother can not improve," meaning one that another cannot refute. When reading early modern argument, check which word is meant before reading it as making better.