Palliate

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Palliate \Pal"li*ate\, a. [L. palliatus, fr. pallium a cloak.
     See {Pall} the garment.]
     1. Covered with a mantle; cloaked; hidden; disguised. [Obs.]
        --Bp. Hall.
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     2. Eased; mitigated; alleviated. [Obs.] --Bp. Fell.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Palliate \Pal"li*ate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Palliated}; p. pr. &
     vb. n. {Palliating}.]
     1. To cover with a mantle or cloak; to cover up; to hide.
        [Obs.]
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              Being palliated with a pilgrim's coat. --Sir T.
                                                    Herbert.
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     2. To cover with excuses; to conceal the enormity of, by
        excuses and apologies; to extenuate; as, to palliate
        faults.
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              They never hide or palliate their vices. --Swift.
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     3. To reduce in violence; to lessen or abate; to mitigate; to
        ease without curing; as, to palliate a disease.
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              To palliate dullness, and give time a shove.
                                                    --Cowper.
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     Syn: To cover; cloak; hide; extenuate; conceal.
  
     Usage: To {Palliate}, {Extenuate}, {Cloak}. These words, as
            here compared, are used in a figurative sense in
            reference to our treatment of wrong action. We cloak
            in order to conceal completely. We extenuate a crime
            when we endeavor to show that it is less than has been
            supposed; we palliate a crime when we endeavor to
            cover or conceal its enormity, at least in part. This
            naturally leads us to soften some of its features, and
            thus palliate approaches extenuate till they have
            become nearly or quite identical. "To palliate is not
            now used, though it once was, in the sense of wholly
            cloaking or covering over, as it might be, our sins,
            but in that of extenuating; to palliate our faults is
            not to hide them altogether, but to seek to diminish
            their guilt in part." --Trench.
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From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  palliate
       v 1: lessen or to try to lessen the seriousness or extent of;
            "The circumstances extenuate the crime" [syn: {extenuate},
             {mitigate}]
       2: provide physical relief, as from pain; "This pill will
          relieve your headaches" [syn: {relieve}, {alleviate}, {assuage}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  108 Moby Thesaurus words for "palliate":
     abate, adjust to, allay, alleviate, allow for, alter, anesthetize,
     appease, assuage, attemper, bank the fire, benumb, blunt, box in,
     camouflage, chasten, circumscribe, cloak, color, conceal,
     condition, condone, constrain, control, cushion, damp, dampen,
     de-emphasize, deaden, deaden the pain, diminish, disguise,
     dissemble, downplay, dull, ease, ease matters, excuse, extenuate,
     foment, give relief, gloss over, hedge, hedge about, hush up,
     ignore, keep within bounds, lay, leaven, lenify, lessen, lighten,
     limit, lull, make allowance for, mask, mince, mitigate, moderate,
     modify, modulate, mollify, narrow, numb, obtund, pad, play down,
     poultice, pour balm into, pour oil on, prettify, qualify, reduce,
     reduce the temperature, regulate by, relieve, restrain, restrict,
     salve, season, set conditions, set limits, slacken, slake,
     slow down, slur over, smother, sober, sober down, soft-pedal,
     soften, soothe, stifle, stupe, subdue, sugarcoat, suppress, tame,
     temper, tone down, tune down, underplay, varnish, veneer, weaken,
     white, whiten, whitewash