Palliate

Palliate Pal"li*ate, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Palliated}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Palliating}.] 1. To cover with a mantle or cloak; to cover up; to hide. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]

Being palliated with a pilgrim's coat. --Sir T. Herbert. [1913 Webster]

2. To cover with excuses; to conceal the enormity of, by excuses and apologies; to extenuate; as, to palliate faults. [1913 Webster]

They never hide or palliate their vices. --Swift. [1913 Webster]

3. To reduce in violence; to lessen or abate; to mitigate; to ease without curing; as, to palliate a disease. [1913 Webster]

To palliate dullness, and give time a shove. --Cowper. [1913 Webster]

Syn: To cover; cloak; hide; extenuate; conceal.

Usage: To {Palliate}, {Extenuate}, {Cloak}. These words, as here compared, are used in a figurative sense in reference to our treatment of wrong action. We cloak in order to conceal completely. We extenuate a crime when we endeavor to show that it is less than has been supposed; we palliate a crime when we endeavor to cover or conceal its enormity, at least in part. This naturally leads us to soften some of its features, and thus palliate approaches extenuate till they have become nearly or quite identical. ``To palliate is not now used, though it once was, in the sense of wholly cloaking or covering over, as it might be, our sins, but in that of extenuating; to palliate our faults is not to hide them altogether, but to seek to diminish their guilt in part.'' --Trench. [1913 Webster]