Definition of "alleviate" []

• To make (pain, for example) more bearable: a drug that alleviates cold symptoms. See Synonyms at relieve. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "My understanding of the word alleviate is not to eradicate but to lessen or make less severe; that is surely not a completely impossible goal and it is usually why many people seek medical help in the first place?"
• "Recently, I read a a media release that noted some state lawmakers have considered seeking government support in a last ditch effort to save local media outlets, yet some only see government intervention as posing a conflict of interest to free press and democracy, although in the short-term alleviate some of the financial strainnewspapers are facing."
• "Suddenly the writer remembers the nameless malady of the poor — that mysterious disease which the rich share but cannot alleviate, which is too subtle for doctors, too incurable for Parliaments, too unpicturesque for philanthropy, too common even for sympathy."