‖n. [ Sp., fr. almendra almond. ] The lofty Brazil-nut tree. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Amended; p. pr. & vb. n. Amending. ] [ F. amender, L. emendare; e (ex) + mendum, menda, fault, akin to Skr. minda personal defect. Cf. Emend, Mend. ] To change or modify in any way for the better; as, (a) by simply removing what is erroneous, corrupt, superfluous, faulty, and the like; (b) by supplying deficiencies; (c) by substituting something else in the place of what is removed; to rectify. [ 1913 Webster ]

Mar not the thing that can not be amended. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

An instant emergency, granting no possibility for revision, or opening for amended thought. De Quincey. [ 1913 Webster ]

We shall cheer her sorrows, and amend her blood, by wedding her to a Norman. Sir W. Scott. [ 1913 Webster ]

To amend a bill, to make some change in the details or provisions of a bill or measure while on its passage, professedly for its improvement. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- To Amend, Emend, Correct, Reform, Rectify. These words agree in the idea of bringing things into a more perfect state. We correct (literally, make straight) when we conform things to some standard or rule; as, to correct proof sheets. We amend by removing blemishes, faults, or errors, and thus rendering a thing more a nearly perfect; as, to amend our ways, to amend a text, the draft of a bill, etc. Emend is only another form of amend, and is applied chiefly to editions of books, etc. To reform is literally to form over again, or put into a new and better form; as, to reform one's life. To rectify is to make right; as, to rectify a mistake, to rectify abuses, inadvertencies, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. To grow better by rectifying something wrong in manners or morals; to improve. “My fortune . . . amends.” Sir P. Sidney. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Capable of being amended; as, an amendable writ or error. -- A*mend"a*ble*ness, n. [1913 Webster]

a. Supplying amendment; corrective; emendatory. Bancroft. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖n. [ F. See Amend. ] A pecuniary punishment or fine; a reparation or recantation. [ 1913 Webster ]

Amende honorable (Old French Law) A species of infamous punishment in which the offender, being led into court with a rope about his neck, and a lighted torch in his hand, begged pardon of his God, the court, etc. In popular language, the phrase now denotes a public apology or recantation, and reparation to an injured party, for improper language or treatment. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who amends. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Much improving. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ F. amendement, LL. amendamentum. ] 1. An alteration or change for the better; correction of a fault or of faults; reformation of life by quitting vices. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. In public bodies; Any alternation made or proposed to be made in a bill or motion by adding, changing, substituting, or omitting. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. (Law) Correction of an error in a writ or process. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Improvement; reformation; emendation. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. sing. & pl. [ F. amendes, pl. of amende. Cf. Amende. ] Compensation for a loss or injury; recompense; reparation. [ Now const. with sing. verb. ] “An honorable amends.” Addison. [ 1913 Webster ]

Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. Commendation; praise. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

Speak in his just commend. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. pl. Compliments; greetings. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

Hearty commends and much endeared love to you. Howell. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Commended; p. pr. & vb. n. Commending. ] [ L. commendare; com- + mandare to intrust to one's charge, enjoin, command. Cf. Command, Mandate. ] 1. To commit, intrust, or give in charge for care or preservation. [ 1913 Webster ]

His eye commends the leading to his hand. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Luke xxiii. 46. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To recommend as worthy of confidence or regard; to present as worthy of notice or favorable attention. [ 1913 Webster ]

Among the objects of knowledge, two especially commend themselves to our contemplation. Sir M. Hale. [ 1913 Webster ]

I commend unto you Phebe our sister. Rom. xvi. 1. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To mention with approbation; to praise; as, to commend a person or an act. [ 1913 Webster ]

Historians commend Alexander for weeping when he read the actions of Achilles. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. To mention by way of courtesy, implying remembrance and good will. [ Archaic ] [ 1913 Webster ]

Commend me to my brother. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. (Formerly accented on the first syllable.) [ L. commendabilis. ] Worthy of being commended or praised; laudable; praiseworthy. [ 1913 Webster ]

Order and decent ceremonies in the church are not only comely but commendable. Bacon.

-- Com*mend"a*ble*ness, n. -- Com*mend"a*bly, adv. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ LL. dare in commendam to give into trust. ] (Eng. Eccl. Law) A vacant living or benefice commended to a cleric (usually a bishop) who enjoyed the revenue until a pastor was provided. A living so held was said to be held in commendam. The practice was abolished by law in 1836. [ 1913 Webster ]

There was [ formerly ] some sense for commendams. Selden. [ 1913 Webster ]

Partnership in commendam. See under Partnership. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ Cf. F. commendataire, LL. commendatarius. ] One who holds a living in commendam. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ L. commendatio. ] 1. The act of commending; praise; favorable representation in words; recommendation. [ 1913 Webster ]

Need we . . . epistles of commendation? 2 Cor. iii. 1. [ 1913 Webster ]

By the commendation of the great officers. Bacon. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. That which is the ground of approbation or praise. [ 1913 Webster ]

Good nature is the most godlike commendation of a man. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. pl. A message of affection or respect; compliments; greeting. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

Hark you, Margaret;
No princely commendations to my king? Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ LL. ] One who holds a benefice in commendam; a commendatary. Chalmers. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. commendatorius. ] 1. Serving to commend; containing praise or commendation; commending; praising. “Commendatory verses.” Pope. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Holding a benefice in commendam; as, a commendatory bishop. Burke. [ 1913 Webster ]

Commendatory prayer (Book of Common Prayer), a prayer read over the dying. “The commendatory prayer was said for him, and, as it ended, he [ William III. ] died.” Bp. Burnet. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A commendation; eulogy. [ R. ] “Commendatories to our affection.” Sharp. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who commends or praises. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. 1. To mention with disapprobation; to blame; to disapprove. [ R. ] Spenser. [ 1913 Webster ]

By commending something in him that is good, and discommending the same fault in others. Jer. Taylor. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To expose to censure or ill favor; to put out of the good graces of any one. [ 1913 Webster ]

A compliance will discommend me to Mr. Coventry. Pepys. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Deserving, disapprobation or blame. -- Dis`com*mend"a*ble*ness, n. [1913 Webster]

n. Blame; censure; reproach. [ R. ] Ayliffe. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who discommends; a dispraiser. Johnson. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Emended; p. pr. & vb. n. Emending. ] [ L. emendare; e out + menda, mendum, fault, blemish: cf. F. émender. Cf. Amend, Mend. ] To purge of faults; to make better; to correct; esp., to make corrections in (a literary work); to alter for the better by textual criticism, generally verbal.

Syn. -- To amend; correct; improve; better; reform; rectify. See Amend. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. emendabilis. Cf. Amendable. ] Corrigible; amendable. [ R. ] Bailey. [ 1913 Webster ]

adv. Without fault; correctly. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ L. emendatio: cf. F. émendation. ] 1. The act of altering for the better, or correcting what is erroneous or faulty; correction; improvement. “He lies in his sin without repentance or emendation.” Jer. Taylor. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Alteration by editorial criticism, as of a text so as to give a better reading; removal of errors or corruptions from a document; as, the book might be improved by judicious emendations. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ L. ] One who emends or critically edits. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. emendatorius. ] Pertaining to emendation; corrective. “Emendatory criticism.” Johnson. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who emends. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ L. emendicatus, p. p. of emendicare to obtain by begging. See Mendicate. ] To beg. [ Obs. ] Cockeram. [ 1913 Webster ]

‖ [ See Commendam. ] (Law) See Commendam, and Partnership in Commendam, under Partnership. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Mended; p. pr. & vb. n. Mending. ] [ Abbrev. fr. amend. See Amend. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

1. To repair, as anything that is torn, broken, defaced, decayed, or the like; to restore from partial decay, injury, or defacement; to patch up; to put in shape or order again; to re-create; as, to mend a garment or a machine. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To alter for the better; to set right; to reform; hence, to quicken; as, to mend one's manners or pace. [ 1913 Webster ]

The best service they could do the state was to mend the lives of the persons who composed it. Sir W. Temple. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To help, to advance, to further; to add to. [ 1913 Webster ]

Though in some lands the grass is but short, yet it mends garden herbs and fruit. Mortimer. [ 1913 Webster ]

You mend the jewel by the wearing it. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- To improve; help; better; emend; amend; correct; rectify; reform. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. To grow better; to advance to a better state; to become improved; to recover; to heal. Shak. [ 1913 Webster +PJC ]

on the mend pred. a. recovering from an illness or injury. [ PJC ]

a. Capable of being mended. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. mendax, -acis, lying, cf. mentiri to lie. ] 1. Given to deception or falsehood; lying; as, a mendacious person. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. False; counterfeit; containing falsehood; as, a mendacious statement. [ 1913 Webster ]

-- Men*da"cious*ly, adv. -- Men*da"cious*ness, n. [ 1913 Webster ]

n.; pl. Mendacities [ L. mendacitas. ] 1. The quality or state of being mendacious; a habit of lying. Macaulay. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A falsehood; a lie. Sir T. Browne. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Lying; deceit; untruth; falsehood. [ 1913 Webster ]

prop. n. Gregor Johann Mendel, founder of the science of genetics (1822-1884); Gregor Mendel.
Syn. -- Gregor Mendel. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

a. [ From Dmitri Mendeleyev, discoverer of the periodic law. ] (Chem.) an unstable radioactive element discovered in 1955 and produced artificially only in very small quantities; symbol Md (also Mv). It is a transuranic element with atomic number 101. Isotopes 255, 256, 257, and 258 have been prepared. Md²⁵⁸, the longest-lived, has a half-life of two months. HCP61 [ PJC ]

prop. a. [ See Mendel's law. ] 1. (Biol.) Pert. to Mendel, or to Mendel's law; as, Mendelian inheritance. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

2. (Biol.) Behaving or being in accordance with Mendel's laws of inheritance; -- said of the distribution of inherited characteristics and of traits thus distributed. -- Men*de"li*an*ism Men*del"ism n. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC ]

. (Biol.) A character which obeys Mendel's law in regard to its hereditary transmission. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

A principle governing the inheritance of many characters in animals and plants, discovered by Gregor J. Mendel (Austrian Augustinian abbot, 1822-84) in breeding experiments with peas. He showed that the height, color, and other characters depend on the presence of determinating factors behaving as units. In any given germ cell each of these is either present or absent. The following example (using letters as symbols of the determining factors and hence also of the individuals possessing them) shows the operation of the law: Tallness being due to a factor T, a tall plant, arising by the union in fertilization of two germ cells both bearing this factor, is TT; a dwarf, being without T, is tt. Crossing these, crossbreeds, Tt, result (called generation F1). In the formation of the germ cells of these crossbreeds a process of segregation occurs such that germ cells, whether male or female, are produced of two kinds, T and t, in equal numbers. The T cells bear the factor “tallness, ” the t cells are devoid of it. The offspring, generation F2, which arise from the chance union of these germ cells in pairs, according to the law of probability, are therefore on an average in the following proportions: 1 TT : 2 Tt : 1 tt; and thus plants pure in tallness (TT) and dwarfness (tt), as well as crossbreeds (Tt), are formed by the interbreeding of crossbreeds. Frequently, as in this example, owning to what is called the dominance of a factor, the operation of Mendel's law may be complicated by the fact that when a dominant factor (as T) occurs with its allelomorph (as t), called recessive, in the crossbreed Tt, the individual Tt is itself indistinguishable from the pure form TT. Generation F1, containing only the Tt form, consists entirely of dominants (tall plants) and generation F2 consists of three dominants (2 Tt, 1 TT) to one dwarf (tt), which, displaying the feature suppressed in F1, is called recessive. Such qualitative and numerical regularity has been proved to exist in regard to very diverse qualities or characters which compose living things, both wild and domesticated, such as colors of flowers, of hair or eyes, patterns, structure, chemical composition, and power of resisting certain diseases. The diversity of forms produced in crossbreeding by horticulturists and fanciers generally results from a process of analytical variation or recombination of the factors composing the parental types. Purity of type consequently acquires a specific meaning. An individual is pure in respect of a given character when it results from the union of two sexual cells both bearing that character, or both without it. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

n. One who mends or repairs. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. See Mendinant. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. The condition of being mendicant; beggary; begging. Burke. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. [ L. mendicans, -antis, p. pr. of mendicare to beg, fr. mendicus beggar, indigent. ] Practicing beggary; begging; living on alms; as, mendicant friars. [ 1913 Webster ]

Mendicant orders (R. C. Ch.), certain monastic orders which are forbidden to acquire landed property and are required to be supported by alms, esp. the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Carmelites, and the Augustinians. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A beggar; esp., one who makes a business of begging; specifically, a begging friar. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. & i. [ L. mendicatus, p. p. of mendicare to beg. ] To beg. [ R. ] Johnson. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. The act or practice of begging; beggary; mendicancy. Sir T. Browne. [ 1913 Webster ]