alleviate

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To make pain, suffering, or a problem less severe.

   The new medicine helped alleviate her chronic back pain.

Simplified etymology

Alleviate dates from the late Middle English period and belongs to a word family based on Latin levis, meaning “light.” Its recorded meaning was “lighten.”

Borrowed from Late Latin alleviatus, past participle of alleviāre (“to lighten; to alleviate”).

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