If you’ve ever wanted to learn how the, ahem, assuage gets made, today is your lucky day—we’ve got a sweet story to quell your hunger for word knowledge. Assuage comes from the Latin adjective suavis, meaning—you guessed it—“sweet.” (Sweet itself is also a distant relation.) Perhaps recalling Mary Poppins (as played by Julie Andrews in the titular film) singing to the Banks children will make the link indelible: “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” To assuage something painful or distressing, such as fear, guilt, or grief, is to lessen its intensity the way, say, saccharine grape flavoring helps mask some of the bitterness of cough syrup. Similarly, to assuage hunger or thirst—as for lexicographical trivia, perhaps—is to end it by satisfying it fully. We hope you’re satisfied!
relieve implies a lifting of enough of a burden to make it tolerable.
took an aspirin to relieve the pain
alleviate implies temporary or partial lessening of pain or distress.
the lotion alleviated the itching
lighten implies reducing a burdensome or depressing weight.
good news would lighten our worries
assuage implies softening or sweetening what is harsh or disagreeable.
ocean breezes assuaged the intense heat
mitigate suggests a moderating or countering of the effect of something violent or painful.
the need to mitigate barbaric laws
allay implies an effective calming or soothing of fears or alarms.
allayed their fears
Examples of assuage in a Sentence
Life contains sorrows that cannot be assuaged, and it is important to be honest in acknowledging this.—Jo McGowan, Commonweal, 5 May 2006But for the second exam, my pretest diet included yogurt and ice cream (without pieces), which assuaged my hunger, and the cleansing was stimulated by a glass of salty liquid midafternoon.—Jane E. Brody, New York Times, 12 July 2005Whatever arrangements such mothers willingly make for their children, whatever strategies they employ to relieve their guilt, whatever books they read to assuage their anxiety—all of that is their business, not mine.—Caitlin Flanagan, Atlantic, March 2004As I've told Jody on numerous occasions, the best way for her to assuage my guilt is to hit it big in the Internet gold rush and then retire …—Matthew Miller, New Republic, 17 Jan. 2000
He couldn't assuage his guilt over the divorce.
a mother cooing to her toddler and assuaging his fear of the dark
Recent Examples on the WebIn order for consumers to purchase items espousing the utility of AI, brands need to first assuage anxieties around the technology.—Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 12 Aug. 2024 Moscow’s maneuvering Russia has tried to assuage concerns in the aftermath of the Tinzaouaten attack.—Christopher Michael Faulkner, The Conversation, 9 Aug. 2024 Fortunately, in addition to slowly working on ways to monetize AI more directly, Meta can benefit and work to assuage these concerns by talking about how investments are already improving cost efficiencies internally and providing better targeting capabilities to its advertising customers.—Zev Fima, CNBC, 27 July 2024 That will likely do little to assuage Maduro’s critics.—Patricia Laya and Andreina Itriago Acosta / Bloomberg, TIME, 29 July 2024 See all Example Sentences for assuage
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'assuage.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Middle English aswagen, from Anglo-French asuager, from Vulgar Latin *assuaviare, from Latin ad- + suavis sweet — more at sweet
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