English Reference

Word

mitigated

Phoneticsmit·i·gat·ed

US/ˈmɪtəˌɡeɪtɪd/

UK/mˈɪtɪɡˌeɪtɪd/

Definition

v. to make a bad situation less serious or painful. You use this when you want to say that something has reduced the negative effects of a problem.

v. to reduce the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something. Often used in legal or formal contexts to describe how evidence or actions lessen the impact of a crime or a negative outcome.

Examples

“The rain mitigated the heat of the summer.”

“The defendant's sincere apology mitigated the severity of the sentence the judge was considering.”

“While the initial shock of the merger was significant, the subsequent restructuring efforts mitigated the risk of a total collapse in the company's market share.”

Examples

simple

“The rain mitigated the heat of the summer.”

contextual

“The defendant's sincere apology mitigated the severity of the sentence the judge was considering.”

complex

“While the initial shock of the merger was significant, the subsequent restructuring efforts mitigated the risk of a total collapse in the company's market share.”

Real-World Examples

“Illegal logging impacts on birds in the forest stands we studied may have been mitigated by the larger primary forest landscape surrounding logged patches.”
Phys.org · 24 Aug 2026
“Testing of the scalable AI-assisted framework, which generates pre-bunking articles, showed the system mitigated a decrease in election confidence due to rumors among sampled voters.”
Phys.org · 27 Aug 2026

This entry

Level
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Occasional
Updated

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English Reference