Amended

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Changed to correct errors or improve something ; formally modified by legal or official means to update or clarify
2. Altered or improved by making corrections or adjustments ; officially changed to reflect new information or decisions
3. Revised to fix mistakes or enhance quality ; legally or formally changed to amend the original terms or content

Etymology: "Amended" is the past form of "amend", so the story belongs to the verb itself. Its root is the Latin "ēmendō", built from "ex", meaning "out of" or "from", and "mendum", meaning "fault". The original sense was therefore "free from faults", and the verb meant to remove a flaw from something. That picture of taking a fault out survives in the modern sense of correcting or adjusting a text, law or decision. The verb reached English through Old French "amender", which passed the Latin form down with its sense intact, and Middle English adopted it as "amenden". Along the way it lost its initial "e" and the Latin prefix gradually became the English "a-" form we see today. Its close relative, "emend", came into English from the same Latin source but was borrowed directly, so the two words are doublets: one arrived through French, the other straight from Latin.

Synonyms: revised, modified, altered, changed, corrected

Antonyms: unaltered, unchanged, fixed, settled, established