assuagement
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /əˈsweɪd͡ʒmənt/
Forms: form: assuagements
Etymology: From assuage + -ment.
Senses: examples: text: He many woordes of comfort ſpake her feare away too chace. / But nought hee could perſwade therein too make her like the cace. / This laſt aſſwagement of her greef he added in the end, / Which was the onely thing that made her loving hart too bend.
ref: 1567, Ovid, “The Eleventh Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […] Willyam Seres […], →OCLC, folio 142, verso, lines 517–520:
text: [T]he aſſwagement of his [a wise man's] diſcontent conſiſts in two things, formerly preſcribed as remedies againſt corporeall pain; viz. Diverſion of his thoughts from his loſſe, or the cause of it; and an application of them to thoſe things, which he knowes to be gratefull and pleaſant to his mind.
ref: 1659–1660, Thomas Stanley, “[The Doctrine of Epicurus.] Chap[ter] XXIII. Of Fortitude, against Discontent of Mind.”, in The History of Philosophy, the Third and Last Volume, […], volume III, London: […] Humphrey Moseley, and Thomas Dring, […], →OCLC, 5th part (Containing the Epicurean Sect), 3rd part of philosophy (Ethick, or Morals), page 261:
text: I had thought two years ago that sex was simply a sensuous craving, an appetite needing assuagement and trailing with it a sense of beauty.
ref: 1926, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “§ 7. Empty House.”, in The World of William Clissold: A Novel at a New Angle (ebook no. 1500551h.html), [Australia]: Project Gutenberg Australia, published May 2015, 4th book (The Story of the Clissolds—Tangle of Desires):
glosses: The action of assuaging; appeasement.
examples: text: So all that night they paſt in great diſeaſe, / Till that the morning, bringing earely light / To guide mens labours, brought them alſo eaſe, / And ſome aſſwagement of their painefull plight.
ref: 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 40, page 422:
text: This was the sole consideration, that afforded any degree of assuagement to her sufferings.
ref: 1797, Ann Radcliffe, chapter 7, in The Italian, or The Confessional of the Black Penitents, volume II, London: T. Cadell Junior & W. Davies, pages 234–235:
text: Writing, it was like a heavenly balm, it was like the flowing out of deep waters, it was like the lifting of a load from the spirit; it brought with it a sense of relief, of assuagement.
ref: 1928, Radclyffe Hall, chapter 7, in The Well of Loneliness, London: Jonathan Cape; republished New York, N.Y.: Covici Friede Publishers, October 1932, →OCLC, book 1, section 2, pages 74–75:
text: He leaned forward pressing the tightened muscles below his ribs and then began to rock back and forth, like a pendulum. So regular was the rocking that it would seem that no assuagement of grief could result from so mechanical a rhythm.
ref: 1959, Mervyn Peake, chapter 34, in Titus Alone, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode:
glosses: The condition of being assuaged.
examples: text: Far down below the Christian captives pine / In dungeon depths, and whoso dares to bring / Assuagements for their wounds, or food, or wine, / Must brave the fiercest vengeance of the king.
ref: 1836, Richard Chenevix Trench, “A Legend of Toledo”, in The Story of Justin Martyr, and Other Poems, 2nd edition, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza 1, page 175:
glosses: An assuaging medicine or application.
Synonyms: sense: action of assuaging
word: alleviation
sense: condition of being assuaged
word: relief
sense: condition of being assuaged
word: respite