alleviate

IPA/əˈliːvieɪt/
KK[əlˈiviˌet]IPA/əˈliːvieɪt/

alleviate — verb

  • alleviatepresent simple I / you / we / they
  • alleviateshe / she / it
  • alleviatedpast simple
  • alleviating-ing form

1. to make a painful feeling, problem, or difficult situation less severe and easie

1.verbtransitiveC1
Definition

to make a painful feeling, problem, or difficult situation less severe and easier to deal with.

Example

The new medicine helped alleviate the pain in Grandpa's swollen knee.

alleviate + physical pain noun

The mayor promised that the new tunnel would alleviate traffic on Main Street.

alleviate + problem noun (traffic, congestion)

Common collocations
  • alleviate pain
  • alleviate suffering
  • alleviate poverty
  • alleviate stress
  • alleviate symptoms
  • alleviate concerns
  • help (to) alleviate
  • do little to alleviate
Synonyms
  • ease

    more everyday and less formal than 'alleviate'

  • relieve

    very close in meaning; can also mean to free someone from a duty

  • mitigate

    formal; emphasises preventing something from becoming worse

  • soothe

    suggests gentle, often emotional or sensory comfort rather than reducing severity

Antonyms
  • aggravate

    to make a problem or pain worse

  • worsen

    general opposite — to become or make worse

  • intensify

    to make stronger, especially of pain or symptoms

Grammar Patterns

alleviate + noun

Usage Note

Object must be something unwanted: pain, suffering, stress, poverty, traffic, symptoms, fears. You cannot alleviate something neutral or positive. Often paired with partial-degree adverbs (somewhat, slightly, partially) because alleviating rarely removes a problem completely.

Common Mistakes

The doctor alleviated my headache completely.
The doctor cured my headache.
'alleviate' means to ease or lessen, not to fully remove; use 'cure' or 'get rid of' for total removal.
The good news alleviated me.
The good news alleviated my worry.
the object should be the problem itself (worry, pain, stress), not the person experiencing it.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: verb/1

All five words describe making something unpleasant feel less strong, but they fit different scenes. 'Ease' is the most everyday and works for both feelings and situations: you can ease pain, ease tension, or ease into a chair. 'Relieve' is close to 'alleviate' but warmer and more common in speech — medicine relieves pain, a phone call relieves worry. 'Alleviate' itself sounds formal and is preferred in writing about social or medical problems: charities alleviate poverty, drugs alleviate symptoms. 'Mitigate' is the most formal and focuses on limiting damage before or as it happens, often in legal, environmental, or risk contexts: airbags mitigate injury. 'Soothe' is gentler and sensory — a soft voice soothes a crying baby; lotion soothes sunburn. Roughly: ease (general), relieve (immediate comfort), alleviate (formal lessening), mitigate (limit damage), soothe (gentle calming).

alleviate ↗relieve ↗ease ↗mitigate ↗soothe ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Phrases

  • help (to) alleviate
  • do little to alleviate
  • designed to alleviate
  • measures to alleviate

Etymology

LatinLate LatinMiddle FrenchMiddle EnglishEnglish

Comes from Late Latin 'alleviatus', the past participle of 'alleviare', meaning 'to lighten' — built from 'ad-' ('to, toward') and 'levis' ('light, not heavy'). The same Latin 'levis' root gave English 'levity' and 'levitate'. The word entered English in the 15th century through French, first in the literal sense of making a load lighter, then quickly extended to lightening pain, grief, and other burdens.