improve

(redirected from improvable)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Wikipedia.
Related to improvable: unprovable, unimprovable

improve (up)on (something)

To make something better in future attempts or iterations. The company always improves upon its previous hardware, making small tweaks and fixes of issues that irked users the last time around. The only way to improve on your writing is to just keep writing as much as you can—while also taking on board advice and constructive criticism from others, of course. Do you have any ideas for how we can improve on this ad campaign?
See also: improve

improve the shining hour

old-fashioned To maximize one's productivity; to make the most of one's time. This notion that children should at all times strive to improve the shining hour—foregoing play and rest in the name of education and work—means many children are being deprived of childhood itself.
See also: hour, improve, shine
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

improve (up)on something

to make something better. (Upon is formal and less commonly used than on.) Do you really think you can improve upon this song? No one can improve on my favorite melody.
See also: improve, on
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

improve on

Make beneficial additions or changes to, as in The company is trying to improve on the previous model. [Late 1600s]
See also: improve, on
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

improve the shining hour

make good use of time; make the most of your time. literary
This expression comes from Isaac Watts's Divine Songs for Children ( 1715 ): ‘How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour’.
See also: hour, improve, shine
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

improve on

or improve upon
v.
To make beneficial additions or changes to something; make something better: We can improve on this room by painting it. I improved upon the recipe by adding more spices.
See also: improve, on
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
See also:
References in periodicals archive ?
This view is an essential part of the late Victorian sense of mission in settling Africa, for it was the new image of Africans as improvable, as educable, that helped to inspire the English to take on this enormous continent.
David Livingstone and the imperial imagination
a number guessing game that uses abstractions to write clear, debuggable, improvable programs.
integrating computational thinking into technology and engineering education: There are several compelling reasons why CT should be integrated into T&E programs
It is this part of Birmingham's record over the years that should have been more substantially improvable, and, if the DCLG's naughty list recorded the same councils' NDR collection rates, Birmingham would be bottom.
Why poor Eric's in a real pickle over his passions; Criticising Birmingham for its uncollected taxes is a bit rich coming from the Communities Secretary, says Chris Game
While Ameriks concedes that we must read Kant's doctrine of the moral law as a "fact of reason" dogmatically--that is, as presenting our subjection to this law as an improvable and yet fully objective fact about ourselves--we should also recognize that the path Kant takes to justify this claim is not baldly dogmatic.
Ameriks, Karl. Kant's Elliptical Path
It will demonstrate to the education system authorities and planners that how investment in training emotional intelligence skills, as trainable and improvable capacities, can reduce job stress and burnout.
The relationship between emotional intelligence and job burnout
In general terms, the results obtained suggest good, albeit improvable, psychometric properties of the scale, coinciding to a great extent with those obtained in the original study.
Caracteristicas psicometricas de la escala BRIEF para la evaluacion de funciones ejecutivas en poblacion clinica espanola
It makes great sense to establish ventures in Islamic banking in Malaysia to further penetrate the region, catering to, for example, a massive market of Indonesia's 204mn Muslims or even Thailand's 3.2mn, both countries where Islamic banking is in demand, but the supply is improvable. Our columnist Dr Arno Maierbrugger is Editor-in-Chief of www.investvine.com, a news portal owned by Inside Investor focusing on Southeast Asian economic topics as well as trade and investment relations between Asean and the GCC.
Islamic finance and its Asean dynamics
3.2 Improvable ideas: supporting the exploration of ideas and related/contrasting ideas, and encouraging idea improvement.
Supporting teachers in designing CSCL activities: a case study of principle-based pedagogical patterns in networked second language classrooms
Indeed, the only way that I can think of improving it (if it's improvable) would be to accessorise the lemon with a pair of those plastic eyes you buy in craft shops, the pupils of which jiggle when you shake them.
women'sown
In the first Vindication, she writes that humans are naturally equal because "there are rights which men inherit at their birth, as rational creatures, who were raised above the brute creation by their improvable faculties." (23) The second Vindication makes the same point, referring specifically to women: "How grossly do they insult us who thus advise us only to render ourselves gentle, domestic brotes." (24) The differences among humans are insignificant, she implies, when compared to the difference between humans and animals.
Necessary fictions: the "Swinish Multitude" and the rights of man
The chi square value was significant, [chi square](44, N = 254) = 188.71, p = .000, and the indicators of global fit were improvable (GFI = .86, AGFI = .79, AIC = 232.71, BIC = 310.53) although the RMSR value (.001) was adequate.
Perceived sexual harassment at work: meta-analysis and structural model of antecedents and consequences
The League of Kyoto seeks to prevent what looks far more to be a geological and natural circumstance--and to attempt to do so with mechanisms that are unproved, improvable, and unacceptable to significant human actors.
The Zen of global warming
The main advantage we expect the advice taker to have is that its behavior will be improvable merely by making statements to it, telling it about its environment and what is wanted from it.
General game playing: overview of the AAAI competition
Though flawed in significant and improvable ways, the stated intent of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is commendable.
Saving black boys: the elusive promises of public education
Idioms browser ?
Full browser ?