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Friday October 16, 2009

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palliate [PAL-ee-ayt]

transitive verb

1. To reduce in violence; to lessen or abate; to ease withhout curing (disease).
2. To cover with excuses; to conceal the enormity of, by excuses and apologies; to extenuate.
3. Lessen or to try to lessen the seriousness or extent of; to mitigate.

• Tina spent the days leading up to offer day preparing herself for disappointment. The fact that she was not terribly impressed with the firm did much to palliate her sadness.
  Michael CIitrome, "Tables turned as law firms chase students", The Gazette, Mar 31, 2007
• Every culture and every age has felt the need to find words that palliate the harsh realities of death and dying.
  Geoffrey Nunberg, "The language of death", Los Angeles Times, Feb 12, 2009
• The young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper, which there had been nothing in the physician's words to excuse or palliate.
  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American novelist and short story writer. The Scarlet Letter (1850)

Origin of the Word

Palliate, approximately 1543 derives from Late Latin palliare "cover with a cloak, conceal," from Latin pallium "cloak".