mitigate
v.v. to make a problem, pain, or bad situation less severe or painful. You use this word when you want to reduce the negative impact of something.
v. to make less severe, painful, or unpleasant; to lessen the seriousness of a problem or negative outcome. Transitive — always takes a direct object.
Wearing a helmet helps mitigate head injuries.
The company introduced new safety rules to mitigate the risk of workplace accidents.
Central banks often raise interest rates to mitigate inflation, though this policy can simultaneously slow economic growth and increase unemployment.
From Middle English mitigaten (“to relieve pain, soothe; (swelling) to abate; (hemorrhoids) to relieve; (the mind) to placate, appease; to end, check; to stop, cease”), from mitigat(e) (“mitigated, alleviated, relived”, also used as the past participle of mitigaten) + -en (verb-forming suffix), borrowed from Latin mītigātus, the perfect passive participle of mītigō (“to make soft, ripe; to tame, pacify”), from mītis (“gentle, mild, ripe”) + -igō (“to do, make”), of uncertain origin, but perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *meh₁y- (“mild, soft”).
From Middle English mitigat(e) (“mitigated”, also used as the past participle of mitigaten and of mitigate in Early Modern English), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.
The verb is transitive and typically takes abstract nouns like 'risk', 'damage', 'impact', or 'effect' as its object.
mitigate the situation downmitigate the situationMitigate is transitive and does not take a particle like 'down' or 'off'.