An improvement in real property; also an improvement generally.
1809. These men, instead of making submission, or any restitution for waste committed, demand, either to be left owners of the soil, or paid for their betterments; that is, for what they have done toward clearing the ground.—E. A. Kendall, ‘Travels,’ iii. 160. (N.E.D.) (Italics in the original.)
1841. [Massachusetts passed] laws requiring the successful plaintiff in ejectment to pay the occupying claimant for what they termed his “betterments,” answering to the melioramenta of the civil law.—Mr. White of Indiana, U.S. Senate, Jan. 19: Cong. Globe, p. 75, App.
1904. The slight betterment thus secured [was] only temporary.—Grover Cleveland on the Bond Issues: ‘Presidential Problems,’ p. 134.
1910. A man prominently identified with the betterment of the city.—N.Y. Evening Post, Jan. 27.
