mitigate
/ˈmɪtɪgeɪt/verb
with obj.
1- make less severe, serious, or painful使温和; 使缓和; 减轻（痛苦）：
drainage schemes have helped to mitigate this problem.
排污系统已经使问题得到缓和。
1.1
- lessen the gravity of (an offence or mistake)减轻（罪行或过错）：
as adj. mitigating he would have faced a prison sentence but for mitigating circumstances.要不是有减轻罪行的情节, 他会被判监禁。
USAGE
The verbs mitigate and militate do not have the same meaning, although the similarity of the forms has led to them being often confused. Mitigate means 'make (something bad) less severe'， as in drainage schemes have helped to mitigate this problem, while militate is nearly always used in constructions with against to mean 'be a powerful factor in preventing'， as in these disagreements will militate against the two communities coming together. More than 10 per cent of citations for mitigate in the British National Corpus are for mitigate against, where the context implies that the sense of militate against is what is intended.
派生词
mitigable
adjectivemitigator
nounmitigatory
adjective词源
late Middle English: from Latin mitigat- 'softened, alleviated'， from the verb mitigare, from mitis 'mild'.