alleviate

alleviate — verb

1. to make a painful feeling, problem, or difficult situation less severe and easie

1.動詞及物C1
釋義

to make a painful feeling, problem, or difficult situation less severe and easier to deal with.

例句

The new medicine helped alleviate the pain in Grandpa's swollen knee.

alleviate + physical pain noun

The mayor promised that the new tunnel would alleviate traffic on Main Street.

alleviate + problem noun (traffic, congestion)

同義詞
  • ease

    more everyday and less formal than 'alleviate'

  • relieve

    very close in meaning; can also mean to free someone from a duty

  • mitigate

    formal; emphasises preventing something from becoming worse

  • soothe

    suggests gentle, often emotional or sensory comfort rather than reducing severity

反義詞
  • aggravate

    to make a problem or pain worse

  • worsen

    general opposite — to become or make worse

  • intensify

    to make stronger, especially of pain or symptoms

文法句型

alleviate + noun

用法筆記

Object must be something unwanted: pain, suffering, stress, poverty, traffic, symptoms, fears. You cannot alleviate something neutral or positive. Often paired with partial-degree adverbs (somewhat, slightly, partially) because alleviating rarely removes a problem completely.

常見錯誤

❌The doctor alleviated my headache completely.
✅The doctor cured my headache.
💡'alleviate' means to ease or lessen, not to fully remove; use 'cure' or 'get rid of' for total removal.
❌The good news alleviated me.
✅The good news alleviated my worry.
💡the object should be the problem itself (worry, pain, stress), not the person experiencing it.