rectify

From Anglo-Norman rectifier, Middle French rectifier (“to make straight”), from Medieval Latin rēctificāre (“make right”), from Latin rēctus (“straight”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛktəˌfaɪ/

rectify (third-person singular simple present rectifies, present participle rectifying, simple past and past participle rectified)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To heal (an organ or part of the body). [14th-18th c.]
2. (transitive) To restore (someone or something) to its proper condition; to straighten out, to set right. [from 16th c.]
3. (transitive) To remedy or fix (an undesirable state of affairs, situation etc.). [from 15th c.]
4. (transitive, chemistry) To purify or refine (a substance) by distillation. [from 15th c.]
5. (transitive) To correct or amend (a mistake, defect etc.). [from 16th c.]
6. (transitive, now rare) To correct (someone who is mistaken). [from 16th c.]
   • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, I.3:

     For thus their Sense informeth them, and herein their Reason cannot Rectifie them; and therefore hopelessly continuing in mistakes, they live and die in their absurdities […]

7. (transitive, geodesy, now historical) To adjust (a globe or sundial) to prepare for the solution of a proposed problem. [from 16th c.]
8. (transitive, electronics) To convert (alternating current) into direct current. [from 19th c.]
9. (transitive, mathematics) To determine the length of a curve included between two limits.
10. (transitive) To produce (as factitious gin or brandy) by redistilling bad wines or strong spirits (whisky, rum, etc.) with flavourings.

• See also Thesaurus:repair

• certify, cretify