HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY
To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key.
Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window.
THE USAGE PANEL
The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.
AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP
The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android.
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG
The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more.
INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES?
Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com
tr.v. re·lieved, re·liev·ing, re·lieves Idiom: 1. a. To cause a lessening or alleviation of: relieved all his symptoms; relieved the tension. b. To make less tedious, monotonous, or unpleasant: Only one small candle relieved the gloom. 2. To free from pain, anxiety, or distress: I was relieved by the news that they had arrived home safely. 3. a. To furnish assistance or aid to: relieve the flooded region. b. To rescue from siege. 4. a. To release (a person) from an obligation, restriction, or burden. b. To free from a specified duty by providing or acting as a substitute. c. Baseball To enter the game as a relief pitcher after (another pitcher). 5. Informal To rob or deprive: Pickpockets relieved him of his money. 6. Archaic To make prominent or effective by contrast; set off. relieve (oneself) To urinate or defecate. [Middle English releven, from Old French relever, from Latin relevāre : re-, re- + levāre, to raise; see legwh- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] re·lieva·ble adj. Synonyms: relieve, allay, alleviate, assuage, lighten2, mitigate, palliate These verbs mean to make something less severe or more bearable. To relieve is to make more endurable something causing discomfort or distress: "that misery which he strives in vain to relieve" (Henry David Thoreau). Allay suggests at least temporary relief from what is burdensome or painful: "This music crept by me upon the waters, / Allaying both their fury and my passion / With its sweet air" (Shakespeare). Alleviate connotes temporary lessening of distress without removal of its cause: "No arguments shall be wanting on my part that can alleviate so severe a misfortune" (Jane Austen). To assuage is to soothe or make milder: assuaged his guilt by confessing to the crime. Lighten signifies to make less heavy or oppressive: legislation that would lighten the taxpayer's burden. Mitigate and palliate connote moderating the force or intensity of something that causes suffering: "I ... prayed to the Lord to mitigate a calamity" (John Galt). "Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing" (Ernest Hemingway). |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
