S: (v) soothe (cause to feel better) "the medicine soothes the pain of the inflammation"
S: (v) comfort, ease (lessen pain or discomfort; alleviate) "ease the pain in your legs"
S: (v) help, aid (improve the condition of) "These pills will help the patient"
S: (v) bring around, cure, heal (provide a cure for, make healthy again) "The treatment cured the boy's acne"; "The quack pretended to heal patients but never managed to"
S: (v) build up, develop (change the use of and make available or usable) "develop land"; "The country developed its natural resources"; "The remote areas of the country were gradually built up"
S: (v) tinker, fiddle (try to fix or mend) "Can you tinker with the T.V. set--it's not working right"; "She always fiddles with her van on the weekend"
S: (v) fill (plug with a substance) "fill a cavity"
S: (v) close, fill up (fill or stop up) "Can you close the cracks with caulking?"
S: (v) seal (close with or as if with a seal) "She sealed the letter with hot wax"
S: (v) plug, stop up, secure (fill or close tightly with or as if with a plug) "plug the hole"; "stop up the leak"
S: (v) stopper, stopple (close or secure with or as if with a stopper) "She stoppered the wine bottle"; "The mothers stoppered their babies' mouths with pacifiers"
S: (v) groom, neaten (care for one's external appearance) "He is always well-groomed"
S: (v) cleanse, clean (clean one's body or parts thereof, as by washing) "clean up before you see your grandparents"; "clean your fingernails before dinner"
S: (v) bathe (cleanse the entire body) "bathe daily"
S: (v) shower (take a shower; wash one's body in the shower) "You should shower after vigorous exercise"
S: (v) foment (bathe with warm water or medicated lotions) "His legs should be fomented"
S: (v) wash (to cleanse (itself or another animal) by licking) "The cat washes several times a day"
S: (v) wash, lave (cleanse (one's body) with soap and water)
S: (v) dress, groom, curry (give a neat appearance to) "groom the dogs"; "dress the horses"
S: (v) dress up, window-dress (make something appear superficially attractive) "The researcher tried to dress up the uninteresting data"; "Don't try to dress up the unpleasant truth"
S: (v) educate, school, train, cultivate, civilize, civilise (teach or refine to be discriminative in taste or judgment) "Cultivate your musical taste"; "Train your tastebuds"; "She is well schooled in poetry"
S: (v) sophisticate (make less natural or innocent) "Their manners had sophisticated the young girls"
S: (v) purify, sublimate, make pure, distill (remove impurities from, increase the concentration of, and separate through the process of distillation) "purify the water"
S: (v) refine, rectify (reduce to a fine, unmixed, or pure state; separate from extraneous matter or cleanse from impurities) "refine sugar"
S: (v) purge (rid of impurities) "purge the water"; "purge your mind"
S: (v) fructify (make productive or fruitful) "The earth that he fructified"
S: (v) raise, lift (invigorate or heighten) "lift my spirits"; "lift his ego"
S: (v) advance (develop further) "We are advancing technology every day"
S: (v) upgrade (give better travel conditions to) "The airline upgraded me when I arrived late and Coach Class was full"
S: (v) educate (give an education to) "We must educate our youngsters better"
S: (v) socialize, socialise (train for a social environment) "The children must be properly socialized"
S: (v) prepare, groom, train (educate for a future role or function) "He is grooming his son to become his successor"; "The prince was prepared to become King one day"; "They trained him to be a warrior"
S: (v) qualify, dispose (make fit or prepared) "Your education qualifies you for this job"
S: (v) habilitate (qualify for teaching at a university in Europe) "He habilitated after his sabbatical at a prestigious American university"
S: (v) capacitate (make capable) "This instruction capacitates us to understand the problem"
W: (n) betterment [Related to: better] (the act of relieving ills and changing for the better)
W: (n) better [Related to: better] (the superior one of two alternatives) "chose the better of the two"
W: (n) improvement [Related to: improve] (the act of improving something) "their improvements increased the value of the property"
W: (n) improver [Related to: improve] (someone devoted to the promotion of human welfare and to social reforms)
W: (n) improver [Related to: improve] (a component that is added to something to improve it) "the addition of a bathroom was a major improvement"; "the addition of cinnamon improved the flavor"
W: (adj) amendable [Related to: amend] (capable of being corrected by additions) "an amendable flaw"
S: (v) disentangle, unsnarl, straighten out (extricate from entanglement) "Can you disentangle the cord?"
S: (v) reform, straighten out, see the light (change for the better) "The lazy student promised to reform"; "the habitual cheater finally saw the light"