mitigate

«mitigate» in Mova's school dictionary: To make something bad less serious, less painful or less… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

part of speech

verb (mitigate, mitigates, mitigated, mitigating)

meaning for a pupil

1) (formal) To make something bad less serious, less painful or less harmful. tree →

2) (law) To make a wrong action seem less bad, so a punishment may be lighter: «mitigating circumstances». tree →

sense in the lessons

Exam voice and news: «measures to mitigate climate change», «mitigate the risk of floods». In safety and science: sandbags mitigate flooding. In law and ethics lessons: «mitigating circumstances» are facts that make a person less to blame (for example, they were very young or tricked). Phrases: «mitigate the effects», «mitigate the damage», «mitigating factors».

examples

• Planting trees can help mitigate flooding. tree →
• The new crossing will mitigate the danger to children. tree →
• Saying sorry quickly may mitigate your punishment. tree →
• Engineers built walls to mitigate the damage from storms. tree →
• The judge said there were mitigating circumstances. tree →
• We shut the windows to mitigate the noise. tree →
• Wearing sun cream mitigates the risk of sunburn. tree →

note

Regular verb: mitigated. Formal; everyday words: «reduce», «ease», «soften», «lessen». Common error: «militate against» is a different phrase (to work against) – do not write «mitigate against». Mitigate means to make less bad, not to remove completely.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «mitigate» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.