The Collaborative International Dictionary
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.
Wiktionary
vb. (en-past of: palliate)
Usage examples of "palliated".
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.
The Higden debt, both for the rent and the stores, was the only one at which she did not blush, since, great as was her indiscretion, in not enquiring into her powers before she plighted her services, it would be palliated by her motive.
Rufinus might be palliated by the jealous and unsociable nature of ambition.
The horrid deed, palliated by the specious names of justice and necessity, was immediately communicated by the emperor to his soldiers, his subjects, and his allies.
Chorasan till the fourth generation, was palliated by their modest and respectful demeanor, the happiness of their subjects and the security of their frontier.
The falsehood of Ladislaus to his word and oath was palliated by the religion of the times: the most perfect, or at least the most popular, excuse would have been the success of his arms and the deliverance of the Eastern church.
That engagement was a very foolish affair, my dear girl, and only to be palliated on the ground of your extreme childishness at the time of its being made.