Crossword clues for palliate
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Palliate \Pal"li*ate\, a. [L. palliatus, fr. pallium a cloak. See Pall the garment.]
Covered with a mantle; cloaked; hidden; disguised. [Obs.]
--Bp. Hall.Eased; mitigated; alleviated. [Obs.]
--Bp. Fell.
Palliate \Pal"li*ate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Palliated; p. pr. & vb. n. Palliating.]
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To cover with a mantle or cloak; to cover up; to hide.
Being palliated with a pilgrim's coat.
--Sir T. Herbert. -
To cover with excuses; to conceal the enormity of, by excuses and apologies; to extenuate; as, to palliate faults.
They never hide or palliate their vices.
--Swift. -
To reduce in violence; to lessen or abate; to mitigate; to ease without curing; as, to palliate a disease.
To palliate dullness, and give time a shove.
--Cowper.Syn: To cover; cloak; hide; extenuate; conceal.
Usage: To Palliate, Extenuate, Cloak. These words, as here compared, are used in a figurative sense in reference to our treatment of wrong action. We cloak in order to conceal completely. We extenuate a crime when we endeavor to show that it is less than has been supposed; we palliate a crime when we endeavor to cover or conceal its enormity, at least in part. This naturally leads us to soften some of its features, and thus palliate approaches extenuate till they have become nearly or quite identical. ``To palliate is not now used, though it once was, in the sense of wholly cloaking or covering over, as it might be, our sins, but in that of extenuating; to palliate our faults is not to hide them altogether, but to seek to diminish their guilt in part.''
--Trench.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"alleviate without curing," early 15c., from Medieval Latin palliatus, literally "cloaked," from past participle of Late Latin palliare "cover with a cloak, conceal," from Latin pallium "cloak" (see pall (n.)). Related: Palliated; palliating; palliation.
Wiktionary
1 (context obsolete English) cloaked; hidden, concealed. (15th-17th c.) 2 (context obsolete English) Eased; mitigated; alleviated. v
1 To relieve the symptoms of; to ameliorate. (from 15th
) 2 (context obsolete English) To hide or disguise. (16th-19th c.) 3 To cover or disguise the seriousness of (a mistake, offence etc.) by excuses and apologies. (from 17th c.) 4 (context obsolete English) To lessen the severity of; to extenuate, moderate, qualify. (17th-18th c.) 5 To placate or mollify. (from 17th c.)
WordNet
Usage examples of "palliate".
Miss Margland, though to the Baronet she would not recede from her first assertions, strove vainly to palliate to herself the ill grace and evident dissatisfaction with which Edgar had met the report.
These apparent errors in the doctrine of Thwackum served greatly to palliate the contrary errors in that of Square, which our good man no less saw and condemned.
The meanness of her condition did not represent her misery as of little consequence in his eyes, nor did it appear to justify, or even to palliate, his guilt, in bringing that misery upon her.
It is equally sure to set off every female perfection to the highest advantage, and to palliate and conceal every defect.
Each of them therefore now endeavoured, as much as he could, to palliate the offence which his own child had committed, and to aggravate the match of the other.
Though the reeds thrashed and whipped at the oarsmen on the windward side of the boat, they did palliate the force of wind and waves to some degree.
The innocence of Crispus was so universally acknowledged, that the modern Greeks, who adore the memory of their founder, are reduced to palliate the guilt of a parricide, which the common feelings of human nature forbade them to justify.
Barbarians, too ignorant to conceive the importance of truth, too proud to deny or palliate the breach of their most solemn engagements.
You will, I trust, assume I had enough interest in her father to palliate my conduct in a measure.
It is found easier, by the short-sighted victims of disease, to palliate their torments by medicine than to prevent them by regimen.
The most valuable lives are daily destroyed by diseases that it is dangerous to palliate and impossible to cure by medicine.
I will not say that their foes are the aggressors, nor will I endeavour to palliate their conduct.
He was a strong man with an austere command of himself, and when he had to face death he divested himself of all that could palliate the suffering, and stood up to it with a stark resolution which was more Roman than Christian.
Who does not see that this is a remedy which aggravates whilst it palliates the countless diseases of society?
This dreadful shake might have been palliated, at least, if not spared, by the lessons of fortitude that noble woman would have inculcated in her young and ductile mind.