different between amend vs redress

English

Etymology

From Middle English amenden, from Old French amender, from Latin ?mend? (“free from faults”), from ex (“from, out of”) + mendum (“fault”). Compare aphetic mend.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /??m?nd/
• Rhymes: -?nd

Verb

amend (third-person singular simple present amends, present participle amending, simple past and past participle amended)

1. (transitive) To make better; improve.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece,^[1]

     Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee;

     Mar not the thing that cannot be amended.

   • 1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, Chapter 13,^[2]

     We shall cheer her sorrows, and amend her blood, by wedding her to a Norman.
2. (intransitive) To become better.
3. (obsolete, transitive) To heal (someone sick); to cure (a disease etc.).
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.x:

     But Paridell complaynd, that his late fight / With Britomart, so sore did him offend, / That ryde he could not, till his hurts he did amend.
4. (obsolete, intransitive) To be healed, to be cured, to recover (from an illness).
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 3,^[3]

     Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls

     That stay his cure: their malady convinces

     The great assay of art; but at his touch—

     Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand—

     They presently amend.

5. (transitive) To make a formal alteration (in legislation, a report, etc.) by adding, deleting, or rephrasing.
   • 1876, Henry Martyn Robert, Robert’s Rules of Order, Chicago: S.C. Griggs & Co., Article III, Section 23, p. 46,^[4]

     The following motions cannot be amended:

   • 1990, Doug Hoyle, Hansard, Trade Union Act, 1984, Amendment no. 2, 4 July, 1990,^[5]

     It is necessary to amend the Act to preserve the spirit in which it was first passed into law […]

Synonyms

• ameliorate
• correct
• improve
• See also Thesaurus:improve
• See also Thesaurus:repair

Related terms

Translations

Noun

amend (plural amends)

1. (usually in the plural) An act of righting a wrong; compensation.

References

• amend at OneLook Dictionary Search
• amend in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• amend in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Edman, Mande, Medan, ad-men, admen, deman, maned, menad, named

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English redressen, from Anglo-Norman radresser, redrescer, redrescier and Middle French redresser (“to stand (someone or something) up; to stand up again; to rebuild, to repair something damaged, to rectify, to restore; to obtain redress; to cure; (of hair) to stand on end; to revise a judgment”) (modern French redresser), from Old French redrecier (“to stand (someone or something) up; to stand up again”), from Old French re- (“prefix meaning ‘again, once more’”) (from Latin re-, from Proto-Italic *wre (“again”); further etymology uncertain) + Old French drechier, drecier, dresser (“to dress; to stand up”) (from Vulgar Latin *dr?cti?re, a contracted form of *dir?cti?re, from Latin d?rectus (“straight”)).

Compare Catalan redreçar, Spanish redreçar (obsolete), Italian redreçare, redrezare, redricciare, ridirizzare (all obsolete), ridrizzare, Late Latin redressare (“to repair; to set right”), Old Occitan redreisar, redresar.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /???d??s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?i?d??s/, /???d??s/
• Rhymes: -?s
• Hyphenation: re?dress

Verb

redress (third-person singular simple present redresses, present participle redressing, simple past and past participle redressed)

1. To put in order again; to set right; to revise.
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker under Creed Church neer Aldgate; And by Robert Boulter at the Turks Head in Bishopsgate-street; and Matthias Walker, under St. Dunstons Church in Fleet-street, OCLC 767532218, book IX; republished as John Milton; Elijah Fenton; Samuel Johnson, Paradise Lost, by John Milton. To which are Prefixed, the Life of the Author, by Elijah Fenton; and a Criticism on the Poem, by Dr. Johnson, London: Printed for John Bumpus, Holborn-Bars, 1821, OCLC 563126389, page 256:

     Let us divide our labours; thou, where choice / Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind / The woodbine round this arbour, or direct / The clasping ivy where to climb; while I, / In yonder spring of roses intermixed / With myrtle, find what to redress till noon: […]

   • 1796 May 10, Alexander Hamilton, letter to George Washington; quoted in George Washington; Jared Sparks, compiler, “Washington's Farewell Address [Appendix, No. III]”, in The Writings of George Washington; being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts; with a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations, volume XII (Part Fifth; Comprising Speeches and Messages to Congress, Proclamations, and Addresses), Boston, Mass.: American Stationers' Company; John B. Russell; Cambridge, Mass.: Folsom, Wells, and Thurston, 1837, OCLC 29437768, page 391:

     Sir; When last in Philadelphia, you mentioned to me your wish that I should re-dress a certain paper, which you had prepared. As it is important, that a thing of this kind should be done with great care, and much at leisure, touched and retouched, I submit a wish, that, as soon as you have given it the body you mean it to have, it may be sent to me.

2. To set right (a wrong); to repair, (an injury); to make amends for; to remedy; to relieve from.
3. To make amends or compensation to; to relieve of anything unjust or oppressive; to bestow relief upon.
   • 1847, Augustin Thierry; William Hazlitt, transl., “The Anglo-Normans and the English by Race”, in History of the Conquest of England by the Normans: Its Causes, and Its Consequences, in England, Scotland, Ireland, and on the Continent [...] Translated from the 7th Paris edition by William Hazlitt, [...], volume II, London: D. Bogue, OCLC 458279441; reprinted Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, ?ISBN, pages=357–358, footnote:

     [Magna Charta] [I]f we, our justiciary, our bailiffs, or any of our officers, shall in any circumstance fail in the performance of them, towards any person, or shall break through any of these articles of peace and security, and the offence be notified to four barons chosen out of the five-and-twenty before mentioned, the said four barons shall repair to us, or our justiciary, if we are out of the realm, and laying open the grievance, shall petition to have it redressed without delay: and if it be not redressed by us, or if we should chance to be out of the realm, if it should not be redressed by our justiciary, within forty days, […] the said five-and-twenty barons, together with the community of the whole kingdom, shall distrain and distress us all the ways possible, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, and in other manner they can, till the grievance is redressed according to their pleasure; […]

4. (transitive, obsolete) To put upright again; to restore.

Derived terms

• redresser
• self-redress

Translations

Noun

redress (countable and uncountable, plural redresses)

1. The act of redressing; a making right; amendment; correction; reformation.
2. A setting right, as of injury, oppression, or wrong, such as the redress of grievances; hence, indemnification; relief; remedy; reparation.
   • 1791 December 15 (adoption), First Amendment of the United States Constitution:

     Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
3. One who, or that which, gives relief; a redresser.

Translations

Etymology 2

re- +? dress.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??i??d??s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?i?d??s/
• Hyphenation: re?dress

Verb

redress (third-person singular simple present redresses, present participle redressing, simple past and past participle redressed)

1. To dress again.
   • 2009, John C. Barber, The Joy of Medical Practice: Forty Years of Interesting Patients (page 22)

     I talked with her mother whenever she was in the room while I redressed the wound.

2. (film) To redecorate a previously existing film set so that it can double for another set.

Noun

redress (plural redresses)

1. (film) The redecoration of a previously existing film set so that it can double for another set.

Further reading

• redress (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• redress (film) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Dresser, dresser