How to Use ameliorate in a Sentence

ameliorate

verb
  • This medicine should help ameliorate the pain.
  • Oh, but there is one thing a female leader can do to ameliorate this bias!
    — Andrea Bartz, Marie Claire, 24 Mar. 2020
  • The world is not yet on track to make the changes necessary to ameliorate its worst effects.
    — Brian Contreras, Los Angeles Times, 27 Dec. 2020
  • Those outcomes have yet to do much to ameliorate the court's image in the public's mind.
    — Time, 30 Sep. 2023
  • What is the answer to ameliorate these needs in the changing workplace?
    — Jedidiah Alex Koh, Forbes, 24 Sep. 2021
  • Our dream is to enlarge it so that all people can join us and share the good in it while ameliorating the bad.
    — Kevin Kelly, WIRED, 16 Apr. 2013
  • Here, the inflatable couch that has helped ameliorate my supply chain woes.
    — Rachel Besser, Vogue, 18 Feb. 2022
  • Drugs can ameliorate some symptoms but cannot stop the progression of the disease.
    — Jenna Sternberg, Smithsonian, 13 Sep. 2019
  • However, there are still steps that can be taken to ameliorate the problem.
    — Tom Rogers, Newsweek, 21 Feb. 2025
  • But Biden and Xi could, at least, agree to work together to try to ameliorate it.
    — John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 15 Nov. 2021
  • There is some thinking that killing the weed upstream could ameliorate the downstream problem.
    — Edmund H. Mahony, Hartford Courant, 12 May 2025
  • Could these have been ameliorated by a female presence in the household?
    — Han Ong, The New Yorker, 16 Oct. 2023
  • And is anyone looking to ameliorate those downsides so gig work can truly live up to its promise?
    — Alexandra Ossola, Quartz Africa, 5 Dec. 2019
  • Still, hobbies ameliorate the stressors of work, the news or family life.
    — Lora Kelley, New York Times, 26 Apr. 2025
  • Congress can pass a law in most cases to ameliorate or roll back a Supreme Court opinion.
    — James Brown, USA TODAY, 26 June 2022
  • The city came to its senses, realizing that the only way to ameliorate the toll road was to not build it in the first place.
    — Dallas News, 9 June 2022
  • At all three schools, the coaches said chess has helped ameliorate behavioral issues in the classroom.
    — Sabrina Leboeuf, Baltimore Sun, 4 Apr. 2022
  • Cloud seeding has been used since the 1970s and could help ameliorate today’s droughts.
    — Parag Khanna, Wired, 20 Sep. 2020
  • Once in power, Napoleon sought to ameliorate the effects of the French civil war.
    — Zenger News, Forbes, 26 Jan. 2023
  • My first response to death is a sense of trying to ameliorate what happened and put the situation right.
    — Rob Tannenbaum, Los Angeles Times, 5 May 2022
  • These studies show that coinfection can worsen, ameliorate or have no impact on the course of an illness.
    — Richard Klasco, M.d., New York Times, 30 Mar. 2018
  • The fate of the world’s largest rainforest and the global quest to ameliorate the effects of climate change hang in the balance.
    — Brian Winter, Foreign Affairs, 30 Apr. 2021
  • The tensions inherent in that state of affairs are what city government tries to ameliorate.
    — Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 25 Nov. 2020
  • If the offense breaks down, Baldwin can create his own shot, so that alone ameliorates poor possessions.
    — David Woods, Indianapolis Star, 4 Nov. 2017
  • The question was what would be the best way to actually try to ameliorate the situation?
    — Walter Frick, Quartz, 17 Mar. 2022
  • Taking control of the narrative is the first step to ameliorating the damage.
    — David Rivera, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Apr. 2026
  • The doctor’s duty was to care for the wounded, to ameliorate suffering, and the soldier must stand down in the face of that moral duty.
    — Washington Post, 29 Oct. 2021
  • Others are high-dose, quasi-pharmaceutical relief designed to ameliorate pain and glue your back to the couch.
    — Kate Bernot, Bon Appetit Magazine, 29 Oct. 2025
  • After the ball flew over his head, Herrera jogged to retrieve the baseball rather than sprinting to ameliorate his mistake.
    — Daniel Rapaport, SI.com, 9 Sep. 2017
  • Moving to multicore processors helped ameliorate that issue for a time.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 24 May 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ameliorate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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