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Glite Dictionary
💊 To ease symptoms 🕊️ To lessen impact
to palliate

to palliate

8.8
Make a bad thing or its effects seem less serious without removing the cause
  • verb
  • /ˈpæl.i.eɪt/
  • Formal
translation icon : mitigar
  • And looking at them, they all have ways to prevent, to palliate and I think, you know, to improve or or, you know, address even late in the game.

And looking at them, they all have ways to prevent, to palliate and I think, you know, to improve or or, you know, address even late in the game.

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Examples

  • While the new policy aims to palliate some of the issues, it does not solve them completely.

  • Every desire is an is an attempt to suppoferize the the the wound to to to palliate the wound.

    Film Courage

  • Universalist societies have also done a greater amount of good, which of course does not excuse or balance the evil but only palliates it.

    Academic text (1999)

  • The doctor prescribed medication to palliate her pain after the surgery.

  • He tried to palliate her concerns with reassurances, though the problems remained unresolved.

Synonyms

to alleviate
vsto palliate
76 5.3

To make pain, suffering, or a problem less strong

lessens appearance of harm rather than removing its cause
to mitigate
vsto palliate
63 5.8

Make something less harmful or painful

reduces how serious it seems without fixing the root cause
to soften the blow
vsto palliate
  • Informal
8 4.7

Make bad news or a loss easier to accept

makes consequences seem less serious instead of removing them
to extenuate
vsto palliate
  • Formal
5 8.8

To make a wrong action seem less serious to others

reduces moral blame rather than easing practical effects

Antonyms

to exacerbate
69 8.0

To make a problem or feeling worse

How Serious

to condemn
298 4.0
to acknowledge
367 3.8
to palliate
  • Formal
8.8

Surface Forms

palliate infinitive
palliated past
palliated past participle
palliating present participle
palliates third person singular

Morphology

palliate = pall (opaque) = pall + ate

Although formed from 'pall' (a covering) plus '-ate', the sense 'to make the effects seem less serious' requires pragmatic inference and is not transparently predictable from the base for typical learners.

Etymology

Palliate comes from the Latin palliare 'to cloak' and pallium 'cloak'. A helpful image is a cloak that softens or hides something bad, so to palliate is to make the effects seem less serious or to ease them without fixing the real cause.