What does "emendation" mean?

The act of altering for the better, or correcting what is erroneous or faulty; correction; improvement.

How do you pronounce "emendation"?

Pronounced //ˌiːmɛnˈdeɪʃən//.

Common synonyms include: amendment, clarification, correction, decoding, demonstration, elucidation.

//ˌiːmɛnˈdeɪʃən// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The act of altering for the better, or correcting what is erroneous or faulty; correction; improvement. uncountable
"‘Aye, aye,’ quoth she, and it will be observed that no emendation whatever is necessary to be made in these two initiative remarks, ‘Aye, aye! […]"
2
a correction by emending; a correction resulting from critical editing wordnet
3
Alteration by editorial criticism, as of a text so as to give a better reading; removal of errors or corruptions from a document. countable
"The book might be improved by judicious emendations."
4
An intentional change in the spelling of a scientific name, which is usually not allowed. countable, uncountable
"The genus name Uramyia is an unjustified emendation of Uramya even though it uses a better transliteration of the Greek word μυῖα."

"‘Aye, aye,’ quoth she, and it will be observed that no emendation whatever is necessary to be made in these two initiative remarks, ‘Aye, aye! […]"

From Middle English emendatioun, from Latin ēmendātiō; equivalent to emend + -ation. Piecewise doublet of amendation.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.