Attenuate vs Mitigate - What's the difference?
attenuate | mitigate |
To reduce in size, force, value, amount, or degree.
* 1874 , , Far From the Madding Crowd , ch. 40:
To make thinner, as by physically reshaping, starving, or decaying.
* 1899 , , His New Mittens , ch. 4:
* 1906 , , The Malefactor , ch. 1:
To weaken.
* Coleridge
* Sir F. Palgrave
To rarefy.
* 1901 , , The First Men in the Moon , ch. 23:
(medicine) To reduce the virulence of a bacteria or virus.
(electronics) To reduce the amplitude of an electrical signal.
(botany, of leaves) Gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.
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To reduce, lessen, or decrease.
* 1795 —
* 1813 —
* 1896 —
* 1901 — , ch 7
* 1920 —
To downplay.
In transitive terms the difference between attenuate and mitigate
is that attenuate is to rarefy while mitigate is to downplay.As an adjective attenuate
is gradually tapering into a petiole-like extension toward the base.attenuate
English
Verb
(attenuat)- A manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the hour, one, in a small, attenuated tone.
- Clumps of attenuated turkeys were suspended here and there.
- Lovell, wan and hollow-eyed, his arm in a sling, his once burly frame gaunt and attenuated with disease, nodded.
- The attention attenuates as its sphere contracts.
- We may reject and reject till we attenuate history into sapless meagreness.
- "It speedily became apparent that the entire strangeness of our circumstances and surroundings—great loss of weight, attenuated but highly oxygenated air, consequent exaggeration of the results of muscular effort, rapid development of weird plants from obscure spores, lurid sky—was exciting my companion unduly."
Antonyms
* amplify (electronics)Derived terms
* attenuation * attenuableAdjective
(en adjective)mitigate
English
Verb
(mitigat)- Measures are pursuing to prevent or mitigate the usual consequences of such outrages, and with the hope of their succeeding at least to avert general hostility.
- But in yielding to it the retaliation has been mitigated as much as possible, both in its extent and in its character...
- Then they tell us that vaccination will mitigate the disease that it will make it milder.
- Then I discovered the brilliance of the landscape around was mitigated by blue spectacles.
- The plague had not been kind to him, yet had left him this small furry thing to mitigate his sorrow; and when one is very young, one can find great relief in the lively antics of a black kitten.