Home › Political Science & Governance › Constitutional Law & Rights › amendment

amendment

uh-MEND-muhnt /əˈmendmənt/

nounB2SATUPSC

FormalLegalLegislative

A formal or official change, addition, or correction made to a law, constitution, or legal document.

Implies an intentional modification through an established formal legislative process.

The story behind the word. In Anglo-Norman French, 'amender' meant to repair or reform. By the 15th century, English parlance applied the term to modifying parliamentary bills to fix flaws.

Word relationships

modification: Modification is any general change, while an amendment is a formal, procedural alteraton to an official legal text.
revision: A revision often implies a broad re-writing of a text, whereas an amendment is typically a specific added or altered clause.

reaffirmation: Reaffirmation leaves the existing legal text completely unchanged while restating its validity.

Commonly confused with

statute: A statute is an independent law enacted by a legislature; an amendment is a change made to an existing law or constitution.

Word family

amend (verb): To make formal changes to a legal text.

Collocations

constitutional amendment
propose an amendment
pass an amendment
First Amendment

Idioms & expressions

Fifth Amendment rights

Example sentences

"The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women the right to vote in 1920." Constitutional history (U.S. National Archives)
"The senator proposed a proposed amendment to allocate additional funding for local public schools." Legislative debate

Memory hook

MEND means to fix or repair; an AMENDMENT fixes or updates a law. Mend the law.

When not to use

Do not use for informal verbal corrections or simple re-edits of casual personal documents.

Fun facts

Over 11,000 constitutional amendments have been proposed in the U.S. Congress since 1789, but only 27 have been ratified.