Assuage
[ə'sweɪdʒ] or [ə'swedʒ]
Definition
(v. t.) To soften, in a figurative sense; to allay, mitigate, ease, or lessen, as heat, pain, or grief; to appease or pacify, as passion or tumult; to satisfy, as appetite or desire.
(v. i.) To abate or subside.
Edited by Karl
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. Mitigate, moderate, appease, alleviate, soothe, soften, mollify, pacify, compose, tranquillize, quiet, still, quell, allay, abate, temper, attemper, lessen, qualify, relieve, ease, dull, blunt, lull.
Checked by Ives
Definition
v.t. to soften mitigate or allay.—v.i. to abate or subside: to diminish.—n. Assuage′ment abatement: mitigation.—adj. Assuā′sive softening mild.
Checker: Mortimer
Examples
- I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- I have not withheld money, you mean, where it could assuage affliction. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- So this man--it was I--was sent for to come to New York and assuage their grief if possible. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- Hold, father, said the Jew, mitigate and assuage your choler. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- Food, however, became scarce; and I often spent the whole day searching in vain for a few acorns to assuage the pangs of hunger. Mary Shelley. Frankenstein_Or_The Modern Prometheus.
- Consoling her, my own sorrows were assuaged; my sincerity won her entire conviction. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
Inputed by Hilary