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mitigate

verb
mit·​i·​gate | \ ˈmi-tə-ˌgāt How to pronounce mitigate (audio) \
mitigated; mitigating

Definition of mitigate

transitive verb

1 : to cause to become less harsh or hostile : mollify aggressiveness may be mitigated or … channeled— Ashley Montagu
2a : to make less severe or painful : alleviate mitigate a patient's suffering
b : extenuate attempted to mitigate the offense
Other Words from mitigate Synonyms & Antonyms Choose the Right Synonym Mitigate vs. Militate: Usage Guide mitigate or militate? More Example Sentences Learn More about mitigate

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Other Words from mitigate

mitigative \ ˈmi-​tə-​ˌgā-​tiv How to pronounce mitigative (audio) \ adjective
mitigator \ ˈmi-​tə-​ˌgā-​tər How to pronounce mitigator (audio) \ noun
mitigatory \ ˈmi-​ti-​gə-​ˌtȯr-​ē How to pronounce mitigatory (audio) \ adjective

Synonyms & Antonyms for mitigate

Synonyms

allay, alleviate, assuage, ease, help, mollify, palliate, relieve, soothe

Antonyms

aggravate, exacerbate

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Choose the Right Synonym for mitigate

relieve, alleviate, lighten, assuage, mitigate, allay mean to make something less grievous. relieve implies a lifting of enough of a burden to make it tolerable. took an aspirin to relieve the pain alleviate implies temporary or partial lessening of pain or distress. the lotion alleviated the itching lighten implies reducing a burdensome or depressing weight. good news would lighten our worries assuage implies softening or sweetening what is harsh or disagreeable. ocean breezes assuaged the intense heat mitigate suggests a moderating or countering of the effect of something violent or painful. the need to mitigate barbaric laws allay implies an effective calming or soothing of fears or alarms. allayed their fears

Mitigate vs. Militate: Usage Guide

Mitigate is sometimes used as an intransitive (followed by against) where militate might be expected. Even though Faulkner used it some intangible and invisible social force that mitigates against him — William Faulkner and one critic thinks it should be called an American idiom, it is usually considered a mistake.

mitigate or militate?

Would it be correct to say, "His boyish appearance mitigated against his getting an early promotion"? Most usage commentators would say "no." They feel such examples demonstrate a long-standing confusion between mitigate and the look-alike militate. Those two words are not closely related etymologically (mitigate descends from the Latin verb mitigare, meaning "to soften," whereas militate traces to militare, another Latin verb that means "to engage in warfare"), nor are they particularly close in meaning (militate means "to have weight or effect"). The confusion between the two has existed for long enough that one commentator thinks "mitigate against" should be accepted as an idiomatic alternative to militate, but if you want to avoid criticism, you should keep mitigate and militate distinct.

Examples of mitigate in a Sentence

At the far end of the room is a sliding glass door, taped with an X to mitigate shattering. The framing is flimsy, and rattles from mortar rounds even a half mile away. — William Langewiesche, Atlantic, May 2005 … a genre novel whose inevitable cinematic ending doesn't mitigate the visceral and emotional power of what has come before. It lingers in the memory like a very bad dream. — Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books, 14 Aug. 2003 For 65 holes Norman dominated the classic rolling fairways and small, subtle greens of Olympic … with driving and iron play so solid that it mitigated mediocre putting. — Jaime Diaz, Sports Illustrated, 8 Nov. 1993 Emergency funds are being provided to help mitigate the effects of the disaster. medicines used to mitigate a patient's suffering
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Recent Examples on the Web

 Fortune Downturn Options If the U.S. does suffer an economic downturn, Wall Street and Washington won’t have many options to mitigate it, the Wall Street Journal reports. — David Meyer, Fortune, "UPS’s Drone Hopes: CEO Daily," 22 Aug. 2019 As more devices are connected to the Internet and the attack surface expands, those vulnerabilities will not only multiply—they will be unmatched by the number of people trained to mitigate them. — Sue Halpern, The New Yorker, "A Summer Camp for the Next Generation of N.S.A. Agents," 15 Aug. 2019 The suit also contends the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires agencies to identify significant environmental effects of their actions and mitigate them if possible. — Priscella Vega, Daily Pilot, "Huntington Beach homeless shelter plan is on hold and may be scrapped amid lawsuit challenging location," 13 Aug. 2019 This, in turn, makes the landscape less able to sequester carbon, sacrificing yet another way to mitigate climate change. — Matt Simon, WIRED, "New IPCC Report Shows How Our Abuse of Land Drives Climate Change," 8 Aug. 2019 The conservancy and its supporters asked for $10.5 million to be included in this year’s city budget to study the drainage issue and begin to mitigate it. — Sharon Otterman, New York Times, "Flooding in Riverside Park: Good for Ducks. Bad for Amtrak Trains Below?," 21 July 2019 The effects of this radiation — and how to mitigate them during spaceflight — aren’t entirely known. — Brian Resnick, Vox, "Scientists are grappling with our biggest limitation in spaceflight: our own bodies," 18 July 2019 Oxy and Anadarko failed to agree on a way to mitigate those stock fears. — Jordan Blum, Houston Chronicle, "Oxy's pursuit of Anadarko - two years in the making," 7 June 2019 Microsoft last month pushed a silent update that mitigated a serious vulnerability in all CPUs Intel has introduced since 2012, researchers who discovered the flaw said Tuesday. — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, "Silent Windows update patched side channel that leaked data from Intel CPUs," 6 Aug. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'mitigate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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First Known Use of mitigate

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

History and Etymology for mitigate

Middle English, from Latin mitigatus, past participle of mitigare to soften, from mitis soft + -igare (akin to Latin agere to drive); akin to Old Irish moíth soft — more at agent

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More Definitions for mitigate

mitigate

verb
How to pronounce mitigate (audio)

English Language Learners Definition of mitigate

formal : to make (something) less severe, harmful, or painful

See the full definition for mitigate in the English Language Learners Dictionary

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