mend

From Middle English menden, by apheresis for amenden (“to amend”); see amend.

• IPA^(key): /mɛnd/
• Rhymes: -ɛnd

mend (plural mends)

1. A place, as in clothing, which has been repaired by mending.
2. The act of repairing.

   My trousers have a big rip in them and need a mend.

• on the mend

mend (third-person singular simple present mends, present participle mending, simple past and past participle mended)

1. (transitive) To repair, as anything that is torn, broken, defaced, decayed, or the like; to restore from partial decay, injury, or defacement.

   My trousers have a big rip in them and need mending.

   When your car breaks down, you can take it to the garage to have it mended.

2. (transitive) To alter for the better; to set right; to reform; hence, to quicken; as, to mend one's manners or pace.

   Her stutter was mended by a speech therapist.

   My broken heart was mended.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir W. Temple

     The best service they could do the state was to mend the lives of the persons who composed it.

3. (transitive) To help, to advance, to further; to add to.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Mortimer

     Though in some lands the grass is but short, yet it mends garden herbs and fruit.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare

     You mend the jewel by wearing it.

   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard

     But my lord was angry, and being disguised with liquor too, he would not let him go till they played more; and play they did, and the luck still went the same way; and my lord grew fierce over it, and cursed and drank, and that did not mend his luck you may be sure […]

4. (intransitive) To grow better; to advance to a better state; to become improved.

• least said, soonest mended
• mend one's pace

• See also Thesaurus:repair

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