Improvement

How to spell improvement

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce improvement

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does improvement mean?

1. nounThe act of making something better, or a change that makes something better.

Improvement in a sentence

• The new manager focused on steady improvement across the whole team.

• There was a marked improvement in her test scores after the extra tutoring.

Where does improvement come from?

Language of origin: French

Improvement traces back through the verb 'improve', which entered English in the 1500s from the Anglo-French phrase 'en prou', meaning 'to turn to profit' or 'to make advantageous'. The key element 'prou' meant 'profit' or 'advantage', and it descends ultimately from the Latin 'prode', meaning 'beneficial' or 'useful', the same root that lies behind 'proud' and 'prowess'. Early on the verb specifically meant to increase the value of something, especially to develop land for greater yield, before broadening to the modern sense of making anything better. The noun 'improvement' was formed by adding the French-derived suffix '-ment', which turns a verb into the name of its result or action. A useful spelling note: although it sounds like 'im-proov-ment', there is a silent 'e' that disappears, leaving 'prove' fully intact in the middle, so the word is simply 'improve' plus '-ment'.

How the word is built

• im- (a variant of en-, 'to put into')
• prove (from Anglo-French prou 'profit, advantage')
• -ment (noun suffix)