assuage
Americanverb (used with object)
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assuages,
present (3rd person singular)
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assuaged,
past participle, past
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assuaging
present participle
verb
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to soothe, moderate, or relieve (grief, pain, etc)
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to give relief to (thirst, appetite, etc); satisfy
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to pacify; calm
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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assuagesimple
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assuagessimple
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have assuagedperfect
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has assuagedperfect
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am assuagingprogressive
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are assuagingprogressive
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is assuagingprogressive
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have been assuagingperfect progressive
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has been assuagingperfect progressive
Past
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assuagedsimple
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had assuagedperfect
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was assuagingprogressive
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were assuagingprogressive
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had been assuagingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of assuage
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English aswagen, from Old French asouagier, from unrecorded Vulgar Latin assuāviāre, equivalent to Latin as- as- + -suāviāre, verbal derivative of Latin suāvis “agreeable to the taste, pleasant” ( cf. suave; akin to sweet )
Explanation
If you assuage an unpleasant feeling, you make it go away. Assuaging your hunger by eating a bag of marshmallows may cause you other unpleasant feelings. The most common things that we assuage are fears, concerns, guilt, grief, anxiety, and anger. That makes a lot of sense — these are all things we seek relief from. The word comes from Old French assouagier, from the Latin root suavis, "sweet" — think of adding a bit of honey to something unpleasant. A word with a similar meaning is mollify.
Vocabulary lists containing assuage
100 SAT Words Beginning with "A"
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To Kill a Mockingbird
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The Giver
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
After processing the heartache of losing another parent in a different way, Tomlinson allowed herself to miss the good memories with her father and assuage any longing for revenge.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
Amy’s pitch, Chief Executive Paul Schiefer said, is tasty, healthy meals that can assuage people’s guilt about reaching for something quick.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
The result has left many in Michigan’s Jewish community wary of El-Sayed and looking for outreach from him and his campaign to assuage their concerns.
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
Then against Canada they were eventually comfortable, but it was not a high-quality win to assuage doubters ahead of a possible meeting with France in the last eight.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026
I get that they’re worried and looking out for me, but I can’t abide their pleas or assuage their fears.
From "Internment" by Samira Ahmed
Squirreling the creature home in her backpack, she assuages its hissing-and-squawking terror with some simple nursing, then decides the right thing to do is reunite her new friend with its family.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2025
What she notices about pizza is that pizza “is like a smiling face: It assuages the fear of complexity by showing everything on its surface.”
From New York Times ● Feb. 3, 2024
Having Castillo atop the rotation certainly assuages many of those feelings.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 5, 2023
Harrison validates and assuages this fear by telling James that love is love is love and James should feel free to pick whomever he wants.
From Slate ● Jan. 6, 2021
But even this suffering is sweet to him: for Love, who conducts and leads him on, assuages and relieves the pain.
From Four Arthurian Romances by William Wistar Comfort
But on Friday, the Americans assuaged all of those concerns in a single half of soccer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
In an instant, Urbina’s fears had been assuaged.
From Salon ● May 2, 2026
But these were largely assuaged by a new start line procedure that was trialled at the test, which gives the drivers more time to get the turbos spinning at the optimum speed.
From BBC ● Feb. 20, 2026
However, the company didn’t share specific funding details that could have assuaged debt concerns.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 11, 2025
Doubts assuaged, Butler returned to his copy of Guns & Ammo, leaving his employer to unravel the secrets of the universe.
From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer
Given the stock’s retreat over recent months, stronger-than-expected results, amid low expectations, “could go a long way in assuaging several of these investor concerns.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 15, 2026
The goal was to provide enterprise customers more powerful tools while assuaging the White House’s concerns that they could be weaponized by bad actors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026
Earlier this week, the U.S. promised tankers protection through the Persian Gulf, if necessary, assuaging some of the market’s concerns about the effects of a Hormuz chokehold.
From Barron's ● Mar. 6, 2026
"A sincere apology would acknowledge that grievance and, in my view, would go some way to assuaging the sense of injustice," he said.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2024
During the first months of their marriage, he called Celia every night, his gentle voice assuaging her.
From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
