Palliated

1 definition found

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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