Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make (pain, for example) more bearable: a drug that alleviates cold symptoms. See Synonyms at relieve.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make light, in a figurative sense; remove in part; lessen, mitigate, or make easier to be endured: as, to alleviate sorrow, pain, care, punishment, burdens, etc.: opposed to aggravate.
- To represent as less; lessen the magnitude or heinousness of; extenuate: applied to moral conduct: as, to alleviate an offense.
- Synonyms Alleviate, Relieve, Mitigate, Assuage, Allay, diminish, soften, abate, qualify, reduce. See allay. Where these words are applied to pain, etc., alleviate is to lighten somewhat, and especially in a soothing way; relieve and allay go further than alleviate, removing in large measure or altogether. Mitigate is to make mild, less severe; perhaps it stands midway between alleviate and relieve. Assuage is to calm down, and that idea underlies all its uses; allay conveys similarly the idea of putting to rest.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To make less severe, as a pain or difficulty.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To lighten or lessen the force or weight of.
- v. To lighten or lessen (physical or mental troubles); to mitigate, or make easier to be endured; ; -- opposed to
aggravate . - v. rare To extenuate; to palliate.
WordNet 3.0
- v. provide physical relief, as from pain
- v. make easier
Etymologies
- Borrowing from Late Latin alleviatus, past participle of alleviare ("to lighten") (ad- ("towards") + levis ("light")). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English alleviaten, from Late Latin alleviāre, alleviāt-, to lighten : Latin ad-, ad- + levis, light; see legwh- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“My understanding of the word alleviate is not to eradicate but to lessen or make less severe; that is surely not a completely impossible goal and it is usually why many people seek medical help in the first place?”
ProWomanProLife » Malcolm Gladwell and the origins of the Pill
“Recently, I read a a media release that noted some state lawmakers have considered seeking government support in a last ditch effort to save local media outlets, yet some only see government intervention as posing a conflict of interest to free press and democracy, although in the short-term alleviate some of the financial strainnewspapers are facing.”
“Suddenly the writer remembers the nameless malady of the poor — that mysterious disease which the rich share but cannot alleviate, which is too subtle for doctors, too incurable for Parliaments, too unpicturesque for philanthropy, too common even for sympathy.”
“Of course, he has health insurance, and he has made a fortune off insurance lobbyists and pharmaceuticals to "alleviate" their liability in lawsuits.”
McConnell: Public option a nonstarter for Senate Republicans
“I'm sure Delta has done the same, just kind of alleviate the situation a little bit.”
“Kasrils said addressing these issues would "alleviate" a lot of problems.”
“(Consumer Reports today said that the bumper does indeed "alleviate" the problem.)”
“The recently launched third Kenya National Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS 2009-2013 highlights the need to scale up interventions among "most-at-risk" populations, including prisoners, but notes that the criminal nature of the activities of these populations posed a serious challenge to programming; the strategy aims to "alleviate" the constraints that have hampered programmes for these groups.”
“We "alleviate" the stress by teaching more overloads, doing more class preparations, agreeing to larger class sizes, foregoing sabbaticals, never asking for release time, paying for our own conference trips, making fewer copies of articles, concurring with the hiring of more part-timers and temporary instructors, and so forth.”
“alleviate" poverty, and the best they can do is a lessening of a burden, then they are failing.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘alleviate’.
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
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INTERP - terminology management terms
Terms from the fields of terminology, lexicography, lexicology and corpus linguistics
reworder, rewording, parser, parsing, tagger, tagging, aligner, aligning, content analysis, content analyzer, corpus management, glossary and 546 more...
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the list
i live in a human..., escapism, crush, infinite, alleviate, gallows, scapegallows, violet, downfall, whisper, watch-word, haven and 15 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1834 more...
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5000 FREE SAT Words
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 229 more...
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Spelling Conundrum
mischievous, confidant, cinch, befuddle, assailant, alleviate, coax, surreptitious, myriad
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Latin Spelling Bee List
need to know these words!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
inane, ambivalent, incriminate, interrupt, amicable, meticulous, animosity, curriculum, electoral, transect, condolences, bugle and 132 more...
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Words
Playa
schadenfreude, quixotic, serendipity, loquacious, ubiquitous, aforementioned, inherently, superfluous, dissonance, tersely, poignant, plethora and 108 more...
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Words
My list of words.
veritable, facetious, nadir, quixotic, apropos, acquiesce, ostensible, insipid, egregious, inveterate, coax, adroit and 409 more...
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Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
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SAT vocab
abash, abate, abdicate, aberration, abhor, abject, abnegate, abortive, absolve, abstruse, accolade, accost and 175 more...
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GRE
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abhor, abjure, abrasive, abridge, abstain, acme, activism, adhere, admonish and 195 more...
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SAT Vocab
Redundant.
problematic, proclivity, prodigal, prodigious, prodigy, profane, profligate, profound, profusion, proliferation, prolific, prologue and 455 more...
Tweets
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