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palliated |
1 definition found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Palliate \Pal"li*ate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Palliated}; p. pr & vb n. {Palliating}.] 1. To cover with a mantle or cloak; to cover up to hide. [Obs.] Being palliated with a pilgrim's coat. --Sir T. Herbert. 2. 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. 3. To reduce in violence; to lessen or abate; to mitigate; to ease withhout 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.
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