# mitigate
## English
### Etymology 1

From Middle English mitigaten (“to relieve pain, soothe; (swelling) to abate; (hemorrhoids) to relieve; (the mind) to placate, appease; to end, check; to stop, cease”), from mitigat(e) (“mitigated, alleviated, relived”, also used as the past participle of mitigaten) +‎ -en (verb-forming suffix), borrowed from Latin mītigātus, the perfect passive participle of mītigō (“to make soft, ripe; to tame, pacify”), from mītis (“gentle, mild, ripe”) + -igō (“to do, make”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₁i- (“mild, soft”).

#### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈmɪt.ɪ.ɡeɪt/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Audio (General Australian):(file)

#### Verb

mitigate (third-person singular simple present mitigates, present participle mitigating, simple past and past participle mitigated)
* (transitive, of problems or flaws) To reduce, lessen, or decrease and thereby to make less severe or easier to bear.
** 1795, George Washington, Seventh State of the Union Address:Measures are pursuing to prevent or mitigate the usual consequences of such outrages, and with the hope of their succeeding at least to avert general hostility.
** 1813, James Madison, Fifth State of the Union Address:But in yielding to it the retaliation has been mitigated as much as possible, both in its extent and in its character...
** 1896, Walter Hadwen, The Case Against Vaccination:Then they tell us that vaccination will mitigate the disease that it will make it milder.
** 1900 December – 1901 August, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 7, in The First Men in the Moon, London: George Newnes, […], published 1901, →OCLC:Then I discovered the brilliance of the landscape around was mitigated by blue spectacles.
** 1920, H. P. Lovecraft, The Cats of Ulthar:The plague had not been kind to him, yet had left him this small furry thing to mitigate his sorrow; and when one is very young, one can find great relief in the lively antics of a black kitten.
** 2018 December 1, Drachinifel, 8:56 from the start, in Anti-Slavery Patrols - The West Africa Squadron‎, archived from the original on 29 November 2024:This highly-aggressive approach had results, but briefly caused a major uproar in parts of the United States, which was mitigated by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty in 1842, which formalised the U.S. Navy's contribution to the antislavery efforts.
** 2021 October 6, Greg Morse, “A need for speed and the drive for 125”, in RAIL, number 941, page 53:But then crashworthiness is not about preventing accidents, but about mitigating their consequences.
* (transitive) To downplay.
* (intransitive, proscribed) To give force or effect toward preventing a problem.
    Synonym: militate
    We've mitigated against the chance of flooding.

##### Synonyms

* (to reduce or lessen): alleviate, check, diminish, ease, lighten, mollify, pacify, palliate

##### Antonyms

* (antonym(s) of “to reduce or lessen”): aggrandize, aggravate, exacerbate, incite, increase, intensify, irritate, worsen

##### Coordinate terms

* ameliorate

##### Related terms

* mitigable
* mitigant
* mitigated
* mitigating
* mitigation
* mitigatory

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

From Middle English mitigat(e) (“mitigated”, also used as the past participle of mitigaten and of mitigate in Early Modern English), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.

### Adjective

mitigate (comparative more mitigate, superlative most mitigate)
* (obsolete) mitigated, alleviated

### References

* ↑ Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “mitigate”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

## Italian
### Etymology 1
#### Verb

mitigate
* inflection of mitigare:
** second-person plural present indicative
** second-person plural imperative

### Etymology 2
#### Participle

mitigate f pl
* feminine plural of mitigato

## Latin
### Participle

mītigāte
* vocative masculine singular of mītigātus

## Spanish
### Verb

mitigate
* second-person singular voseo imperative of mitigar combined with te