To occupy; to make use of, employ.--Pickering's Vocab. "This word," says Mr. Pickering, "in the first sense, is in constant use in all parts of New England; but in the second sense (when applied to persons, as in the following example,) it is not so common."
In action of trespass against several defendants, the plaintiffs may, after issue is closed, strike out any of them for the purpose of improving them as witnesses.--Swift's System of the Colony Laws of Connecticut, Vol. II.
Dr. Franklin, in a letter to Dr. Webster, dated Dec. 26th, 1789, has the following remarks: "When I left New England in the year 1723, this word had never been used among us, as far as I know, but in the sense of ameliorated or made better, except once, in a very old book of Dr. Mather's, entitled Remarkable Providences."
Ann Cole, a person of serious piety, living in Hartford, in 1662, was taken with very strange fits, whereon her tongue was improved by a demon, to express things unknown to herself.-- Cotton Mather, Magnalia, Book VI.