Synonyms

mitigate

American

[mit-i-gayt] / ˈmɪt ɪˌgeɪt /

verb (used with object)

to lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate.
to make less severe.

to mitigate a punishment.
to reduce the risk or impact of harmful conditions or events.

To mitigate flood damage, new building regulations are being developed.
to make (a person, one's state of mind, disposition, etc.) milder or more gentle; mollify; appease.
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)

to become milder; lessen in severity.

mitigate British

/ ˈmɪtɪˌɡeɪt /

verb

to make or become less severe or harsh; moderate

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

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; see -ate ¹

Explanation

Choose the verb mitigate when something lessens the unpleasantness of a situation. You can mitigate your parents' anger by telling them you were late to dinner because you were helping your elderly neighbor. The somewhat formal verb mitigate comes from the Latin roots mītis, "soft," and agere, "to do/act," which add up to "to soften." It is often used with words that indicate an outcome or something harmful. When you buy car insurance, you are trying to mitigate the risks involved with driving. Sunscreen is used to mitigate the effects of the sun on your skin.

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Vocabulary lists containing mitigate

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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:

mitigate mitigates mitigated mitigating

The minister said the ongoing work by the trust had helped mitigate the waiting times at the ED but that these were still "much too long".

From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026

The initiative changes the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, a law intended to inform decision makers and the public about a project’s possible environmental impacts — and mitigate them to the extent possible.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2026

Some competitors have called for an industry-wide slowdown to address and mitigate safety concerns.

From Barron's ● Oct. 12, 2026

The FDA unveiled a 10-part plan to mitigate and prevent future cyclospora outbreaks.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 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

The advantage of this location "is that you can use the original tunnel's roof as your little tunnel's roof. Also, it mitigates risk of flooding," said Dix.

From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026

Moore said the facility has remained at 45 degrees, which mitigates the risk of it becoming a biohazard due to food spoilage.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 21, 2026

CoreWeave mitigates customer-turned-competitor risk with multiyear contracts and financing backed by customer revenue streams.

From Barron's ● Mar. 24, 2026

But he added that the products Arm designs for that part of the market come with “dramatically smaller royalties,” which mitigates the potential impact on Arm’s business.

From MarketWatch ● Feb. 4, 2026

There is a consideration that mitigates the complication, and renders the task of unravelling it not altogether hopeless.

From Logic, Inductive and Deductive by William Minto

Bloating is often temporary and other gastric side effects may be mitigated by starting the supplement at a low dose and increasing daily consumption incrementally.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026

This latest decline is down not just to hot weather, which has been slightly mitigated by recent rainfall, but also a reduction in cultivated areas -- pared back 1.9 percent in the past year.

From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026

"You don't want to stifle innovation," Thune said on Monday, "but I think you also want to make sure that the more advanced threats can be mitigated."

From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026

U.S. stocks gained after a rosy growth projection from Nvidia mitigated fears about the sustainability of the artificial-intelligence boom.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

The first officers, on the other hand, were talking to their boss, and so they overwhelmingly chose the most mitigated alternative.

From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

The so-called Games Agreement laid out a “shared set of values” and called for an operating budget that would be “prudent, realistic, and designed to protect taxpayers by mitigating financial risk.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026

It depends on where you live, however, as there are many mitigating factors when it comes to filing for Chapter 7.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 16, 2026

She added there had been "intensive" discussions over the weekend about mitigating jobs losses.

From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026

Jet fuel prices will remain elevated over the July-December period, it forecast, vowing to pursue mitigating actions such as hedging for crude oil price changes.

From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026

Further, I want to prevail upon this Court to consider this boy’s plea of guilty as evidence mitigating his punishment.

From "Native Son" by Richard Wright

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023