Synonyms

mitigate

American

[mit-i-gayt] / ˈmɪt ɪˌgeɪt /

verb (used with object)

to lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate.
to make less severe.

to mitigate a punishment.
to reduce the risk or impact of harmful conditions or events.

To mitigate flood damage, new building regulations are being developed.
to make (a person, one's state of mind, disposition, etc.) milder or more gentle; mollify; appease.
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)

to become milder; lessen in severity.

mitigate British

/ ˈmɪtɪˌɡeɪt /

verb

to make or become less severe or harsh; moderate

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

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; see -ate ¹

Explanation

Choose the verb mitigate when something lessens the unpleasantness of a situation. You can mitigate your parents' anger by telling them you were late to dinner because you were helping your elderly neighbor. The somewhat formal verb mitigate comes from the Latin roots mītis, "soft," and agere, "to do/act," which add up to "to soften." It is often used with words that indicate an outcome or something harmful. When you buy car insurance, you are trying to mitigate the risks involved with driving. Sunscreen is used to mitigate the effects of the sun on your skin.

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Vocabulary lists containing mitigate

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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.

See Examples For:

mitigate mitigates mitigated mitigating

Joy Wiltermuth and Greg Robb outlined what the Treasury might do to mitigate upward pressure on long-term bond yields.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 30, 2026

Several firms have recently introduced ETFs that seek to mitigate these quirks by hopping through a regulatory loophole.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

According to Camenzind, "This is a limitation, but further improvements to device design could help mitigate this source of error."

From Science Daily ● Oct. 26, 2026

She points to funding wins and work to mitigate pressures on public schools and housing costs in Congress.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2026

Management actions at and in the immediate vicinity of airports do little to mitigate the risk of off-airport strikes during departure and approach.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

And economists have shown that continued immigration mitigates inflation and extends the solvency of Social Security and Medicare funds.

From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2026

"The external intervention we need is from government in the shape of grassroots music festival tax relief. Festivals eat and drink risk, but tax relief mitigates some of that risk."

From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026

Moore said the facility has remained at 45 degrees, which mitigates the risk of it becoming a biohazard due to food spoilage.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 21, 2026

While China relies on oil imports, "it mitigates this exposure through diversified suppliers, ties with Iran, substantial strategic reserves and continued reliance on coal", she said.

From Barron's ● Apr. 14, 2026

It must not be overlooked that that passage in Ps. lxxxii. belongs to higher poetry; that the author himself there mitigates in ver.

From Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

There are reasons why so many people are struggling right now—reasons that cannot fully be avoided or mitigated.

From Slate ● Nov. 1, 2026

Bloating is often temporary and other gastric side effects may be mitigated by starting the supplement at a low dose and increasing daily consumption incrementally.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026

Bonus points for an address higher on a hill, where flood risk is mitigated.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

This latest decline is down not just to hot weather, which has been slightly mitigated by recent rainfall, but also a reduction in cultivated areas -- pared back 1.9 percent in the past year.

From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026

They don’t see any hierarchical gap between themselves and the pilots in the air, and to them, mitigated speech from a pilot doesn’t mean the speaker is being appropriately deferential to a superior.

From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

Boulder wants compensation for wildfires, the costs for mitigating pest infestations, reduced farm output and lower employee productivity, among other things.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

The so-called Games Agreement laid out a “shared set of values” and called for an operating budget that would be “prudent, realistic, and designed to protect taxpayers by mitigating financial risk.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026

It depends on where you live, however, as there are many mitigating factors when it comes to filing for Chapter 7.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 16, 2026

A mechanism that requires data centre developers to match their projects, with new green generation capacity being commissioned, would be a neat way of mitigating the risks but that requires government or regulatory intervention.

From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026

“I don’t believe anything you tell me,” Nately replied, with a bashful mitigating smile.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023