ALLEVIATE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Alleviate

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/əlˈiviˌeɪt/ Listen

verb

Alleviate v. t. (past & past part. alleviated; pres. part. alleviating)

To lighten or lessen the force or weight of. (Obs.) "Should no others join capable to alleviate the expense." "Those large bladders... conduce much to the alleviating of the body (of flying birds)."

To lighten or lessen (physical or mental troubles); to mitigate, or make easier to be endured; as, to alleviate sorrow, pain, care, etc.; opposed to aggravate. "The calamity of the want of the sense of hearing is much alleviated by giving the use of letters."

To extenuate; to palliate. (R.) "He alleviates his fault by an excuse."

Synonyms: To lessen; diminish; soften; mitigate; assuage; abate; relieve; nullify; allay. To Alleviate, Mitigate, Assuage, Allay. These words have in common the idea of relief from some painful state; and being all figurative, they differ in their application, according to the image under which this idea is presented. Alleviate supposes a load which is lightened or taken off; as, to alleviate one's cares. Mitigate supposes something fierce which is made mild; as, to mitigate one's anguish. Assuage supposes something violent which is quieted; as, to assuage one's sorrow. Allay supposes something previously excited, but now brought down; as, to allay one's suffering or one's thirst. To alleviate the distresses of life; to mitigate the fierceness of passion or the violence of grief; to assuage angry feeling; to allay wounded sensibility.

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Etymology of 'Alleviate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Alleviate" Quotes from Famous Books

... alleviate your distress to be told how universal and deep is the sympathy with it—quite as much in England ...

— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... this theory of return to Nature pleased the ruling classes. The young King and Queen were well-meaning and kindly to the people. Louis XVI went among the poor and did something to alleviate the misery that he saw. Marie Antoinette gave up {166} the extravagant career of fashion and spent happy hours in the rustic village of Trianon. Nobles and maids of honour played at rusticity, unconscious ...

— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... the aid he could. Writing to him on the 9th of January, 1781, he says: "It is impossible for anyone to sympathize more feelingly with you in the sufferings and distresses of the troops than I do, and nothing could aggravate my unhappiness so much as the want of ability to remedy or alleviate the calamities which they suffer and in which we participate but ...

— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... went about actively, rejoicing in his new-found capacity to alleviate human suffering. What the Faculty would have thought of him we know not. All on board the gun-boat venerated him as a most perfect surgeon. His natural neatness of hand stood him in good stead, for men were bleeding to death all round him, and in order ...

— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... England and Scotland, where there was more security of tenure, rents had quadrupled. This insecurity and uncertainty had resulted in a great increase of pauperism in Ireland, and prevented any rise in wages, although there was increased expense of living. The remedy proposed to alleviate in some respect the condition of the Irish tenants was the extension of their leases to thirty-three years, and the granting national assistance to such as desired to purchase the lands they had previously cultivated, according to a scale of prices to be determined by commissioners,—thus making ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

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