Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To make less severe or intense; moderate or alleviate. synonym: relieve.
- transitive verb To make alterations to (land) to make it less polluted or more hospitable to wildlife.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To make milder or more tolerable; reduce in amount or degree, as something objectionable, reprehensible, distressing, harmful, etc.; moderate; alleviate; assuage.
- To soften; mollify; make mild and accessible.
- Synonyms Alleviate, Relieve, etc. See
alleviate .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To make less severe, intense, harsh, rigorous, painful, etc.; to soften; to meliorate; to alleviate; to diminish; to lessen
- transitive verb obsolete To make mild and accessible; to mollify; -- applied to persons.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To
reduce ,lessen , ordecrease . - verb transitive To
downplay .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb make less severe or harsh
- verb lessen or to try to lessen the seriousness or extent of
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
Support
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Examples
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Whether or not preventative care will mitigate is debatable.
Discourse.net: Can It Really Be that People Are More Credulous Today? 2009
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The easies way to mitigate is to lock down the desktops, have specific/tight firewall rules, and do content filtering.
Web Surfing Crackdowns by Corporations as Harmfall? « PurpleSlog – Awesomeness & Modesty Meets Sexy 2006
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Stating reasons in direct, honest terms mitigate fears you're looking for temporary job
CNN.com 2010
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Stating reasons in direct, honest terms mitigate fears you're looking for temporary job
CNN.com 2010
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If the owner chooses to mitigate, that is the business judgment made by the owner.
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The bank, on an analysts 'call this month, said it would "mitigate" lower service charge income by considering moves such as imposing account maintenance fees.
Bank of America's Moynihan says challenges just starting 2010
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Since the bills were introduced, lawmakers have made changes that eliminate or extend deadlines for setting some of the new safety standards; give the transportation secretary the discretion to set rules that had been mandated in earlier versions; and require safety standards to "mitigate" runaway acceleration rather than "prevent" the problem, records show.
Vehicle safety bills reflect compromise between U.S. legislators and automakers 2010
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They made no secret of how they plan to "mitigate" the effects.
Tim Chen: We Will All Have to Pay for Financial Reform Tim Chen 2010
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Frankly, it's laughable (not to mention offensive) to accept the Corps'premise that it's possible to actually "mitigate" the effects of mine operations -- you simply can't replace a buried headwater stream by constructing a gravel-lined drainage channel.
Rob Perks: Making Sense of EPA's Mountaintop Removal Action 2009
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Since when do instances of political oversight "mitigate" journalistic oversight?
Neena Satija: Why Did Financial Journalists Miss the Financial Crisis? 2009
oroboros commented on the word mitigate
Also see: ameliorate.
November 18, 2007
mohitanand commented on the word mitigate
verb: make less severe or harsh
I can only spend so much time mitigating your disagreements with your wife, and at certain point, you need to do it on your own.
verb: lessen the severity of an offense
If it weren't for the mitigating circumstances, he would have certainly lost his job.
October 12, 2016