Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A cloaking or concealment; a means of hiding or concealing.
  • noun The act of palliating or concealing the more flagrant circumstances of an offense, crime, etc.; a lessening or toning down of the enormity or gravity of a fault, offense, etc., by the urging of extenuating circumstances, or by favorable representations; extenuation.
  • noun Mitigation or alleviation, as of a disease.
  • noun Synonyms See palliate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of palliating, or state of being palliated; extenuation; excuse.
  • noun Mitigation; alleviation, as of a disease.
  • noun obsolete That which cloaks or covers; disguise; also, the state of being covered or disguised.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The alleviation of a disease's symptoms without a cure; temporary relief.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun easing the severity of a pain or a disease without removing the cause
  • noun to act in such a way as to cause an offense to seem less serious

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old (and modern) French, from late Latin palliare ‘cover’, from pallium.

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Examples

  • "I am glad to hear you say so," said Cap. "Miss Black, please hear this in palliation – I would not presume to say in defense – of my conduct: I was driven to frenzy by a passion of contending love and jealousy as violent and maddening as it was unreal and transient.

    The Hidden Hand 1888

  • It is true that he afterwards composed an elaborate apology for his people in the form of a history in twenty volumes, which may be considered as a kind of palliation for the evil he had done them in action.

    Josephus Norman Bentwich 1927

  • It is true that he afterwards composed an elaborate apology for his people in the form of a history in twenty volumes, which may be considered as a kind of palliation for the evil he had done them in action.

    Josephus Bentwich, Norman 1914

  • "If you have a terminal diagnosis, you are a hospice candidate, you have an incurable disease that required palliation, meaning the relieving of symptoms, I think we need as many tools in that scenario as we can have," Dr. Miller added.

    KTVO3 - KTVO News 2009

  • This study shows that physicians who behave as though more is better and aggressive treatment is preferable to palliation and watchful waiting may impose needless suffering on black patients in their final days.

    Barbara Coombs Lee: Once Again, Race Matters-But How? Barbara Coombs Lee 2010

  • In light of these events, lest we feel too guilty for plunging our readers down the slippery slope of disillusionment into a gaping abyss of continual despair from our ideologically harrowing subject matter, we would like to offer for your personal palliation the following token of our support.

    The Lovecraft News Network 2010

  • In light of these events, lest we feel too guilty for plunging our readers down the slippery slope of disillusionment into a gaping abyss of continual despair from our ideologically harrowing subject matter, we would like to offer for your personal palliation the following token of our support.

    Archive 2010-04-01 2010

  • This study shows that physicians who behave as though more is better and aggressive treatment is preferable to palliation and watchful waiting may impose needless suffering on black patients in their final days.

    Barbara Coombs Lee: Once Again, Race Matters-But How? Barbara Coombs Lee 2010

  • No hand wringing, little wrangling -- just a realization that suffering requires palliation regardless of where in the world it is happening.

    Hisham Wyne: Pakistan's Floods: Civil Society in Dubai Is Alive and Well 2010

  • No hand wringing, little wrangling -- just a realization that suffering requires palliation regardless of where in the world it is happening.

    Hisham Wyne: Pakistan's Floods: Civil Society in Dubai Is Alive and Well 2010

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