mitigate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate.
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to make less severe.
to mitigate a punishment.
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to reduce the risk or impact of harmful conditions or events.
To mitigate flood damage, new building regulations are being developed.
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to make (a person, one's state of mind, disposition, etc.) milder or more gentle; mollify; appease.
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Environmental Science. to restore or recreate (a habitat) in order to make up for losses due to development or agriculture.
No one has tried anything on this scale before to mitigate the grasslands bird habitat.
verb (used without object)
verb
Usage
Mitigate is sometimes wrongly used where militate is meant: his behaviour militates (not mitigates ) against his chances of promotion
Commonly Confused
Mitigate, whose central meaning is “to lessen” or “to make less severe,” is sometimes confused with militate, which means “to have effect or influence; weigh on.” This mix-up often occurs in the use of the phrase mitigate against, as follows: This criticism in no way mitigates (read militates ) against your going ahead with your research. Although this use of mitigate occasionally occurs in edited writing, it is rare and is widely regarded as an error.
Other Word Forms
- mitigable adjective
- mitigation noun
- mitigative adjective
- mitigator noun
- overmitigate verb
- unmitigable adjective
Etymology
Origin of mitigate
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English mitigaten, from Latin mītigātus (past participle of mītigāre “to calm, soften, soothe”), equivalent to mīt(is) “mild, soft, gentle” + -ig- (combining form of agere “to do, cause to do, make”) + -ātus verb suffix; -ate 1
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.
“Everyone is trying their best to mitigate the impact domestically and hoping that resolution can come soon — somehow, someway,” said Goh.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 2, 2026
They included measures to mitigate the impact of external lighting on the landscape due to the site's elevated position.
From BBC • Apr. 1, 2026
This time around, Kagan and Sotomayor may have sought to mitigate the damage rather than take a loss on the chin.
From Slate • Mar. 31, 2026
“Densification reduces capex per megawatt, CDC builds on industrial sites with limited community opposition, and contractual protections help mitigate Neocloud risk,” analyst Phil Campbell says.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 27, 2026
Because for a private citizen to become a prince presupposes virtue or Fortune, it appears that either the one or the other of these two things should partially mitigate many of the problems.
From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli
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.
