# alleviate

/əˈɫiviˌeɪt/ (US) · /ɐlˈiːvɪˌeɪt/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/alleviate
Updated: 2026-06-20

## Senses

### 1. to reduce pain or difficulty

verb · CEFR B2

to make something like pain or a problem less severe or easier to bear.

For teachers: to make suffering, deficiency, or a problem less severe. Transitive — requires a direct object representing the burden being eased.

- The new medicine helped to alleviate her back pain within minutes.
- The government introduced several new measures designed to alleviate the housing shortage in the city's most crowded districts.

Usage: Commonly collocates with 'pain', 'suffering', 'poverty', or 'symptoms'.

Teaching tip: Learners often confuse this with 'solve'. Alleviate means to make a bad situation better, not necessarily to fix it completely.

### 2. to pay down debt

verb · CEFR C1 · Technical · Formal

to pay off part of a debt or loan.

For teachers: to reduce the principal of a debt or financial obligation through partial payment.

- He used his year-end bonus to alleviate some of his student loan debt.
- The restructuring plan allowed the corporation to alleviate its massive debt burden by selling off non-core assets.

Usage: Used specifically in the context of reducing the total amount of a debt.

Teaching tip: This is a highly specialised financial use; in everyday English, 'pay off' or 'reduce' is much more common.

## Examples

- This medicine helps alleviate the headache.
- The new policy aims to alleviate traffic congestion in the city center during rush hour.
- While the treaty did not resolve the underlying political tensions, it did alleviate the immediate humanitarian crisis by allowing aid trucks to cross the border.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.