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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
allay
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
allay suspicionformal (= make people stop having suspicions)
▪ She had to allay their suspicions and stop them probing any further.
allay/quell sb’s misgivings (=stop someone from being worried)
▪ He tried to allay her misgivings about the flight, with little success.
ease/allay/dispel sb’s fears (=help someone stop being afraid)
▪ Frank eased my fears about not being able to speak the local language.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
concern
▪ Meanwhile Friday's retail sales figures allayed some concerns about the prospect of an abrupt economic landing.
▪ That would allay concerns about public confidence in the paediatric services at Middlesbrough General Hospital.
fear
▪ Counselling should explore the employee's concerns about the move and try to allay fears.
▪ In this way he can discuss current information with his wife and help to allay her fears.
▪ Kelly argues that the removal of the requirement to aid decision-makers would allay fears.
▪ Even the precautions he took could not allay her fears and it wasn't too long before he gave up trying.
▪ Some Alliance supporters made statements that did little to allay such fears.
▪ The virtual extinction of the dragon sister tutor should also help to allay your fears.
▪ But he failed to allay fears that he will be a fatally flawed candidate when pitted against President Bush next autumn.
▪ It might not allay fears, but it will clarify them.
suspicion
▪ Sly had to allay their suspicions and stop them probing any further.
▪ Margaret came from a wealthy family, and Richard was anxious to allay any suspicion that he had married for money.
▪ This huge increase should have allayed the peasants' suspicions of the new regime, but this was hot the case.
▪ To allay suspicion she ate three spoonfuls herself but was found out.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Showing her his identity card went some way towards allaying her suspicions.
▪ The government is anxious to allay public fears over the safety of beef.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ At the conclusion of the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Roosevelt tried to allay them.
▪ But as if to allay our disappointment, teams of curious sea lions kept popping up near our kayaks.
▪ In this way he can discuss current information with his wife and help to allay her fears.
▪ Kelly argues that the removal of the requirement to aid decision-makers would allay fears.
▪ One might well conclude the dismissal was a feint, a hollow gesture to allay perceived public outrage.
▪ The concessions in the spring parliament of 1340 did not, however, allay the discontent in the countryside.
▪ They have not taken the time to allay their own worries and uncertainties.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Allay

Allay \Al*lay"\, v. t. To mix (metals); to mix with a baser metal; to alloy; to deteriorate. [Archaic]
--Fuller.

Allay

Allay \Al*lay"\, n. Alloy. [Obs.]
--Chaucer.

Allay

Allay \Al*lay"\, n. Alleviation; abatement; check. [Obs.]

Allay

Allay \Al*lay"\, v. t. To diminish in strength; to abate; to subside. ``When the rage allays.''
--Shak.

Allay

Allay \Al*lay"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Allayed; p. pr. & vb. n. Allaying.] [OE. alaien, aleggen, to lay down, put down, humble, put an end to, AS. [=a]lecgan; [=a]- (cf. Goth. us-, G. er-, orig. meaning out) + lecgan to lay; but confused with old forms of allege, alloy, alegge. See Lay.]

  1. To make quiet or put at rest; to pacify or appease; to quell; to calm; as, to allay popular excitement; to allay the tumult of the passions.

  2. To alleviate; to abate; to mitigate; as, to allay the severity of affliction or the bitterness of adversity.

    It would allay the burning quality of that fell poison.
    --Shak.

    Syn: To alleviate; check; repress; assuage; appease; abate; subdue; destroy; compose; soothe; calm; quiet. See Alleviate.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
allay

Old English alecgan "to put down, remit, give up," a Germanic compound (cognates: Gothic uslagjan, Old High German irleccan, German erlegen), from a- "down, aside" + lecgan "to lay" (see lay).\n

\nEarly Middle English pronunciations of -y- and -g- were not always distinct, and the word was confused in Middle English with various senses of Romanic-derived alloy and allege, especially the latter in an obsolete sense of "to lighten," from Latin ad- "to" + levis (see lever).\nAmid the overlapping of meanings that thus arose, there was developed a perplexing network of uses of allay and allege, that belong entirely to no one of the original vbs., but combine the senses of two or more of them. [OED]The double -l- is 17c., a mistaken Latinism. Related: Allayed; allaying.

Wiktionary
allay

n. alleviation; abatement; check vb. 1 (context transitive English) To make quiet or put at rest; to pacify or appease; to quell; to calm. 2 (context transitive English) To alleviate; to abate; to mitigate. 3 (context intransitive obsolete English) To subside, abate, become peaceful. 4 (context archaic English) To mix (metals); to mix with a baser metal; to alloy; to deteriorate.

WordNet
allay
  1. v. lessen the intensity of or calm; "The news eased my conscience"; "still the fears" [syn: still, relieve, ease]

  2. satisfy (thirst); "The cold water quenched his thirst" [syn: quench, slake, assuage]

Usage examples of "allay".

This will not only assist in neutralizing the acidity of the stomach, but will help to allay the thirst and accompanying fever.

The reply of those who opposed the adjournment was that the condition of public affairs did actually tend to revolution, and that instead of fanning the popular excitement by remaining in session, Congress would be thus most wisely allaying the fears which had entered the minds of so large a number of the people.

FELLOW-CITIZENS:--When the General Assembly, now about adjourning, assembled in November last, from the bankrupt state of the public treasury, the pecuniary embarrassments prevailing in every department of society, the dilapidated state of the public works, and the impending danger of the degradation of the State, you had a right to expect that your representatives would lose no time in devising and adopting measures to avert threatened calamities, alleviate the distresses of the people, and allay the fearful apprehensions in regard to the future prosperity of the State.

Joran and Lilla served themselves first, to allay any suspicions that the food was drugged, but the Agnate still refused to eat or drink.

The tremor with which she had faced this her first evening in general society had allayed itself almost as soon as she entered the room, giving place to a kind of pleasure for which she was not at all prepared, a pleasure inconsistent with the mood which governed her life.

Whether or not her concerns had been allayed, she set about her work without further delay, and in short order, a feeling of well-being suffused my limbs.

When I had allayed his anxiety, he left us on some business of his own, saying that he would return at night-fall.

I enclose the two letters you sent back to me, with the idea of allaying my fears which you cruelly supposed very different to what they are in reality.

I fell in her arms, our lips fastened together, and, in a voluptuous, ardent pressure, we enjoyed an amorous exhaustion not sufficient to allay our desires, but delightful enough to deceive them for the moment.

Here they went ashore to a wretched bivouac, to lie about the camp fires, with their belts drawn tight, chewing grass or aromatic leaves to allay their hunger.

The fresh plant, bruised, and applied against the pit of the stomach over the navel, will allay sickness, and is useful to stay the diarrhoeic purging of young children.

As my pretence for withdrawing from the house was to allay my thirst, Kory-Kory either suspecting some design on my part, or else prompted by a desire to please me, regularly every evening placed a calabash of water by my side.

Sophia ever once intrude themselves to allay the satisfaction he enjoyed in the chace, which, he said, was one of the finest he ever saw, and which he swore was very well worth going fifty miles for.

More courageous than she is, I told her that you were a good swimmer, but I could not allay her anxiety, and she went to bed with a feverish chill.

September 27 Throne Speech, only eight relatively insignificant items were passed into law and only two pieces of important legislation - a bill to establish a National Economic Development Board and a measure to allay the impact of automation - ever reached the debating stage.