Noun
The act of altering for the better, or correcting what is erroneous or faulty; correction; improvement.
Alteration by editorial criticism, as of a text so as to give a better reading; removal of errors or corruptions from a document; as, the book might be improved by judicious emendations.
Source: Webster's dictionaryI have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right. Samuel Johnson