assuage
verbUS /əˈswɑʒ/ · /əˈsweɪd͡ʒ/
Etymology From Middle English aswagen, from Old French asuagier (“to appease, to calm”), from Vulgar Latin *assuāviō (“to sweeten, to butter up, to calm”), derived from Latin ad- + suāvis (“sweet”) + -iō.
1
To lessen the intensity of, to mitigate or relieve (hunger, emotion, pain, etc.).
- Refreshing winds the summer's heat assuage.1705, J[oseph] Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
- to assuage the sorrows of a desolate old man1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made upon Him and His Pension, […], London: […] J. Owen, […], and F[rancis] and C[harles] Rivington, […], →OCLC:
2 more examples
- the fount at which the panting mind assuages her thirst of knowledge1816, Lord Byron, “Canto III”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Third, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza CX:
- 1864 November 21, Abraham Lincoln (signed) or John Hay, letter to Mrs. Bixby in Boston I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost.
2
To pacify or soothe (someone).
3
Obsolete To calm down, become less violent (of passion, hunger etc.); to subside, to abate.
- Derived terms
- assuageable, assuagement, assuager, assuagingly, unassuaged, unassuaging