palliate

• So far can Literature palliate, or compensate, for gastronomical privations. —  Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries)
• The incessant and urgent demands of the Directors upon him for money may palliate, perhaps, the violence of those methods which he took to procure it for them; and the obstruction to his policy which would have arisen from a strict observance of Treaties, may be admitted, by the same gentle casuistry, as an apology for his frequent infractions of them. —  Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2
• Those only who borrow their ideas of political justice from the despotic codes of Europe, and are more imbued with the spirit of METTERNICH and BOMBA than of JEFFERSON and MADISON, will attempt to justify, palliate, or excuse such violation of the sacred rights of the people. —  A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention For Proposing Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Held at Washington, D.C., in February, A.D. 1861
• No doubt the barbarous excesses of the followers of Gautier and Peter the Hermit made him look upon the whole body of them with disgust, but it was the disgust of a little mind, which is glad of any excuse to palliate or justify its own irresolution and love of ease Godfrey of Bouillon traversed Hungary in the most quiet and orderly manner. —  Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
• This nothing can palliate or offset 229. —  Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus