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The word for today is…
mitigate (verb) – 1. To make less severe or intense; moderate or alleviate.
2. To make alterations to (land) to make it less polluted or more hospitable to wildlife.
Source : The Free Dictionary
Etymology : The meaning of mitigate is straightforward enough: it is most often used to talk about making something, such as a problem, symptom, or punishment, less harsh or severe. Sometimes, however, it appears where the similar-looking militate is expected. That word, which is often followed by against, means “to have weight or effect,” as in “your unexcused absences might militate against your getting a promotion.” The two words are not closely related etymologically (mitigate descends from the Latin verb mitigare, meaning “to soften,” whereas militate traces to militare, another Latin verb that means “to engage in warfare”), but the confusion between the two has existed for long enough that some usage commentators have accepted “mitigate against” as an idiomatic alternative to militate. If you want to avoid criticism, you should keep mitigate and militate distinct.
