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GERMAN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

verschlimmbessern.

to make something worse in an honest but failed attempt to improve it

17 characters4 syllables approx.Deutsch language

Meaning & usage

verb/fɛɐ̯ˈʃlɪmˌbɛsɐn//fɐ-/
  1. to make something worse in an honest but failed attempt to improve it

    informal · weak
  2. to edit a text and thereby unintentionally distort it

    informal · weak
Where this word comes from

Blend of verschlimmern (“to make worse”) + verbessern (“to improve”), attributed to Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. See also disimprove.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.