Verb

(assuag)

To lessen the intensity of, to mitigate or relieve (hunger, emotion, pain etc.).

* Addison

Refreshing winds the summer's heat assuage .

* Burke

to assuage the sorrows of a desolate old man

* Byron

the fount at which the panting mind assuages / her thirst of knowledge

* 1864 November 21, Abraham Lincoln (signed) or John Hay, letter to Mrs. Bixby in Boston

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost.

To pacify or soothe (someone).

(obsolete) To calm down, become less violent (of passion, hunger etc.); to subside, to abate.

Verb

(improv)

(lb) To make (something) better; to increase the value or productivity (of something).

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*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}

(lb) To become better.

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*:“My Continental prominence is improving ,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”

(lb) To disprove or make void; to refute.

*(William Tyndale) (1494-1536)

*:Neither can any of them make so strong a reason which another cannot improve .

(lb) To disapprove of; to find fault with; to reprove; to censure.

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:(Chapman)

*(William Tyndale) (1494-1536)

*:When he rehearsed his preachings and his doing unto the high apostles, they could improve nothing.

(lb) To use or employ to good purpose; to turn to profitable account.

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*(Isaac Barrow) (1630-1677)

*:We shall especially honour God by improving diligently the talents which God hath committed to us.

*(Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)

*:a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved

*(William Blackstone) (1723-1780)

*:The court seldom fails to improve the opportunity.

*(Isaac Watts) (1674-1748)

*:How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour.

*(George Washington) (1732-1799)

*:True policy, as well as good faith, in my opinion, binds us to improve the occasion.