[ad. L. ēmendātiōn-em, noun of action f. ēmendāre to EMEND. (In OF. esmendacion).] The action of emending.
† 1. Correction, reformation, improvement (of life, conduct, etc.). Obs.
1536. Bellenden, Cron. Scot. (1821), II. 166. The noblis of Scotland … seand na emendation of his life.
1660. R. Coke, Power & Subj., 201. The emendation of the Church.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm., Wks. 1716, II. 110. Emendation … of nature is produced by his grace.
2. Improvement by alteration and correction; esp. of literary or artistic products, methods of procedure, scientific systems, etc.; a particular instance of such improvement.
1586. W. Webbe, Eng. Poetrie (Arb.), 95. The emendations of Poemes be very necessary.
1641. Milton, Ch. Govt., V. (1851), 116. All this … interpolisht by some second hand with crooks and emendations.
1665. Sir G. Wharton, Disc. Observ. Easter, Wks. (1683), 36. A better Emendation of the Calendar.
1736. Butler, Anal., Introd. Wks. 1874, I. 7. What would be the amount of these emendations … upon the system of nature.
1783. Mason, Du Fresnoy’s Art Paint., Pref. p. xii. (R.). I hardly left a single line in it without giving it, what I thought, an emendation.
1830. Cunningham, Brit. Paint., I. 156. His friends suggested emendations.
1854. H. Rogers, Ess. (1860), II. 52. Leibnitz’ emendation of the saying … has passed into epigrammatic notoriety.
1872. O. W. Holmes, Poet Breakf.-t., vi. 193. I should like to see any man’s biography with corrections and emendations by his ghost.
b. esp. The correction (usually by conjecture or inference) of the text of an author where it is presumed to have been corrupted in transmission; a textual alteration for this purpose.
1622–62. Heylin, Cosmogr., Introd. (1666), 9/2. The emendation of Bochartus coming in to help.
1778. Bp. Lowth, Isaiah, Prelim. Dissert. (ed. 12), 45. Whether the conjectural rendering, or the conjectural emendation, be the more agreeable to the context.
1877. Dowden, Shaks. Prim., iii. 30. The emendations being more often wrong than right.
