English Help Online's Blog

Today, I’d like to write about the expression “on the mend”. We use it when we want to talk about someone or something which is recovering from something bad. Here are some ways to use it in sentences.

I was very sick last week, but I’m on the mend now.

A: I heard Jack had to have an operation! Is he ok?

B: We were very worried for a while, but fortunately he’s on the mend now.

My sister’s boyfriend broke up with her and totally broke her heart! She’s a strong woman though. I’m sure she’ll be on the mend soon.

The economy was in deep trouble, but there are signs now that it’s on the mend.

So, as you can see from my examples, we usually use this expression to talk about people recovering from a physical or emotional problem such as an illness, an injury or a broken heart.

However, as you can see in my last example, we can also use it to talk about the economy when it recovers from a recession. This is a less common way to use it, but we sometimes hear this in the news media.