Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BET'TER, adv.

1. In a more excellent manner; with more skill and wisdom, virtue, advantage, or success; as, to perform work better; to plan a scheme better; land better cultivated; laws better executed; government better administered.
2. More correctly, or fully; as, to understand a subject better than another.
3. With superior excellence; as, to write or speak better than another.
4. With more affection; in a higher degree; as, to love one better than another. It is not easy to specify and exemplify the various applications of better. In general, it implies what is more excellent, advantageous, useful, or virtuous, than something else.