Verb

(en verb)

To make less; to diminish; to reduce.

* Calamy

Charity shall lessen his punishment.

* Atterbury

St. Paul chose to magnify his office when ill men conspired to lessen it.

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=December 16 , author=Denis Campbell , title=Hospital staff 'lack skills to cope with dementia patients' , work=Guardian citation , page= , passage=Many hospitals have not taken simple steps to lessen the distress and confusion which dementia sufferers' often feel on being somewhere so unfamiliar – such as making signs large and easy to read, using colour schemes to help patients find their way around unfamiliar wards and not putting family mementoes such as photographs nearby.}}

To become less.

Verb

(anaesthetis)

* 1905 , William Gilman Thompson, Practical dietetics: With Special Reference to Diet in Diseases , page 524:

The retching may be overcome by painting or spraying the pharynx with a 2- or 4-per-cent solution of cocain, or, as Stewart recommends, by allowing the patient to swallow a few drops of the solution, to anaesthetise the oesophagus.

* 2007 , Linda Davies, Into the Fire , Twenty First Century Publishers Ltd., page 84:

But now she was freed of the daily slavery of the office, and she no longer needed to drink to accompany Roddy, or to anaesthetise herself to his friends.