ameliorate
/əˈmiːli.əɹeɪt/verb
ameliorate is spelled A-M-E-L-I-O-R-A-T-E. The wrong spelling people search most is amerliorate: about 50 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 85 of all searches for the word. Ameliorate is a verb meaning “To make better, or improve, something perceived to be in a negative condition”.
How many letters and syllables are in ameliorate?
| Letters | 10: A-M-E-L-I-O-R-A-T-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 3 million words; the 49,368th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, amerliorate, about 50 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell ameliorate?
Ameliorate is spelled A-M-E-L-I-O-R-A-T-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 85 of the searches for ameliorate in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is ameliorate?
Ameliorate appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 49,368th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce ameliorate?
- /əˈmiːli.əɹeɪt/
Ameliorate has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-ameliorate.ogg, En-au-ameliorate.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of ameliorate
- ameliorates present, singular, he/she/it
- ameliorating participle, present
- ameliorated participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does ameliorate mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To make better, or improve, something perceived to be in a negative condition.
They offered some compromises in an effort to ameliorate the situation.
- 2
To become better; improve.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Ameliorate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense to make better:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | améliorer |
| German | verbessern |
| Portuguese | aperfeiçoar, melhorar |
| Spanish | mejorar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does ameliorate come from?
Alteration of meliorate after French améliorer.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).