Mitigate

How to spell mitigate

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce mitigate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mitigate mean?

1. verbTo make something less severe, harmful, or painful.

Mitigate in a sentence

• The company installed flood defences to mitigate the risk of damage.

• Careful planning can mitigate the financial impact of a long illness.

Where does mitigate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb mitigare, which meant 'to soften, to soothe, or to make gentle'. It was formed from mitis, meaning 'mild' or 'soft', combined with the root of agere, meaning 'to drive' or 'to make', so the whole literally suggested 'making something mild'. The earliest Roman uses were often quite physical, describing the softening of fruit or the soothing of pain, before the sense broadened to calming anger or lessening any kind of harshness. English picked the word up in the late 1300s and early 1400s, partly through legal and medical writing where one might 'mitigate' a punishment or a fever. The gentle root mitis still echoes in the modern meaning of reducing the severity of something, and remembering that single 't' in the Latin mitis can help you avoid wrongly doubling the letter when you spell it.

How the word is built

• mitig- (from Latin mitigare: to soften or make mild)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)