verb
-
to relieve (pain, grief, etc) or be relieved
-
(tr) to reduce (fear, anger, etc)
Related Words
Allay, moderate, soothe mean to reduce excitement or emotion. To allay is to lay to rest or lull to a sense of security, possibly by making the emotion seem unjustified: to allay suspicion, anxiety, fears. To moderate is to tone down any excess and thus to restore calm: to moderate the expression of one's grief. To soothe is to exert a pacifying or tranquilizing influence: to soothe a terrified child.
Other Word Forms
- allayer noun
- unallayed adjective
Etymology
Origin of allay
before 1000; Middle English aleyen, Old English ālecgan to put down, allay ( ā- a- 3 + lecgan to lay 1 ); spelling -ll- shows influence of the now obsolete allege (< Anglo-French, Old French aleg ( i ) er; allege ) to alleviate, allay
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.
This person tries to allay the fears of the men as she appeals to them to "hang in there, we are doing everything we can".
From BBC
That should also allay fears of inflated valuations for artificial intelligence plays—as Barron’s has argued, any bubble is unlikely to burst while the Fed is in the midst of cutting rates.
From Barron's
Nvidia’s shares handed back gains Thursday, leading other tech stocks lower, after its earnings only briefly allayed worries over heavy spending in AI.
Even as skeptics have raised concerns about potential risks to consumers posed by more widespread adoption of stablecoins, Allaire has tried to allay regulators’ worries and integrate the product into mainstream finance.
From MarketWatch
Germany’s SAP proposed changes to how clients can request support and pay for its business-management software, seeking to allay competition concerns from European Union officials weeks after they launched an investigation into the company.
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.
