Word.ws English Dictionary

disimproving

disimproving is the present participle and gerund of disimprove.

Meaning of disimprove

Verb

disimprove (third-person singular simple present disimproves, present participle disimproving, simple past and past participle disimproved)

  1. (rare, transitive) To make worse.
    • To which may be added this advantage, that the services of churchmen are rewardable upon the church's stock: no need to disimprove the royal banks to pay thanks to bishops.1642, Jeremy Taylor, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy or Episcopacy Asserted against the Arians and Acephali New and Old
  2. (intransitive, rare) To deteriorate.
  3. (informal, rare, influenced by the German verb verschlimmbessern) To try to make something better but end up making it worse.

Questions about disimproving

What is disimproving the present participle and gerund of?
Disimproving is the present participle and gerund of disimprove.

Words near disimproving in the dictionary

  1. disimprove
  2. disimproved
  3. disimprovement
  4. disimprovements
  5. disimproves
  6. disimproving
  7. disincantation
  8. disincantations
  9. disincarcerate
  10. disincarcerated
  11. disincarcerates

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: disimproving (page history and authors); disimprove (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “disimproving.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/disimproving. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.