mitigate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate.
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to make less severe.
to mitigate a punishment.
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to reduce the risk or impact of harmful conditions or events.
To mitigate flood damage, new building regulations are being developed.
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to make (a person, one's state of mind, disposition, etc.) milder or more gentle; mollify; appease.
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Environmental Science. to restore or recreate (a habitat) in order to make up for losses due to development or agriculture.
No one has tried anything on this scale before to mitigate the grasslands bird habitat.
verb (used without object)
verb
Usage
Mitigate is sometimes wrongly used where militate is meant: his behaviour militates (not mitigates ) against his chances of promotion
Commonly Confused
Mitigate, whose central meaning is “to lessen” or “to make less severe,” is sometimes confused with militate, which means “to have effect or influence; weigh on.” This mix-up often occurs in the use of the phrase mitigate against, as follows: This criticism in no way mitigates (read militates ) against your going ahead with your research. Although this use of mitigate occasionally occurs in edited writing, it is rare and is widely regarded as an error.
Other Word Forms
- mitigable adjective
- mitigation noun
- mitigative adjective
- mitigator noun
- overmitigate verb
- unmitigable adjective
Etymology
Origin of mitigate
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English mitigaten, from Latin mītigātus (past participle of mītigāre “to calm, soften, soothe”), equivalent to mīt(is) “mild, soft, gentle” + -ig- (combining form of agere “to do, cause to do, make”) + -ātus verb suffix; -ate 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Disneyland Resort’s high percentage of California visitors has helped mitigate a dip in international tourists, an executive said Thursday.
From Los Angeles Times
This was basically the argument made by Jamie Siminoff, the founder and head inventor of Ring, as he went on an apology tour of sorts to try and mitigate the post-Super Bowl damage.
From Salon
“These buffers should help to mitigate the rise in prices—at least if the conflict is relatively short lived, lasting no more than a month or so.”
From Barron's
Tetreault cites the shorter duration of bare-knuckle fights as another mitigating factor when answering safety concerns.
From BBC
In a statement sent to the BBC, the court said it considered Thomas P's previous clean record and the loss of a person close to him "to be mitigating factors".
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
