Make Your Point: ASSUAGE

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pronounce ASSUAGE:

uh SWAIDGE

connect this word to others:

When it comes to helping people feel better or just chill out, we have so many verbs to choose from, like assuage, the one we're checking out today, plus allay, alleviate, appease, conciliate, mitigate, mollify, pacify, and placate.

So, what makes assuage special?

It's a sweetheart! It's based on the Latin suavis, "sweet, good, or agreeable," which is closely related to suadere, "to recommend as good." Etymologically, if you're assuaging people's sour or bitter feelings, you're sweetening them, or making them more agreeable.

So, assuage is cousins with other words about sweetness, goodness, or agreeableness, like suave, persuade, and ___suade ("to talk people out of things").

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

"Assuage" has Latin bits that literally mean "to sweeten" or "to make more agreeable."

When you assuage people, or when you assuage people's fears, pains, or worries, you calm them, soothe them, or make them feel more at ease.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, the transitive kind: "She assuaged their worries;" "His words assuaged their fears."

Other forms:

The other verb forms are "assuaged" and "assuaging."

People who do the assuaging are "assuagers." And the process of doing it is either "assuagement" or "assuaging;" take your pick.

If you need some adjectives, you can refer to people and their upset feelings as "assuaged" and "unassuaged," and as "assuageable" and "unassuageable;" and you can refer to the assuagers and their efforts as "assuaging" or "unassuaging."

how to use it:

Pick the formal, common word "assuage" to strike a serious tone as you emphasize someone's attempt to ease someone's stress or pain and therefore improve their mood or behavior.

Most often, we talk about assuaging people's feelings or bad thoughts. That is, with words or actions (or snacks!), we assuage someone's hunger, thirst, pain, grief, sorrow, misery, fears, doubts, worries, concerns, or anger.

Less commonly, we talk about assuaging the upset people themselves: "He assuaged his critics," "The stimulus checks assuaged frustrated consumers."

examples:

"They were always a little hungry, not starving, but with an emptiness inside them that was never quite assuaged."
— Ann Petry, Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad, 1955

"Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania announced plans to convene task forces on combating antisemitism... Such assurances have failed to assuage top donors."
— Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times, 6 November 2023

has this page helped you understand "assuage"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "assuage" without saying "soothe" or "ease."

try it out:

Fill in the blanks: "Nothing but (this) can assuage (someone's) (fears, worries, or bad feelings of some kind)."

Example 1: "When I'm stressed about things I can't control, nothing but distraction and staying busy can assuage the worries."

Example 2: "Harry felt that nothing but action would assuage his feelings of guilt and grief and that he ought to set out on his mission to find and destroy Horcruxes as soon as possible."
— by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 2007

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for this month is Confounding Contronyms!

In each issue, I'll give you two quotes, each with a blank. The same word goes in both blanks—but it means opposite things. Your job is to come up with that word: that slippery little contronym. To see the hints, highlight the hidden white text. To see the answer, scroll to the bottom.

Try this today:

Quote 1: "Josebury put his hands on my shoulders and moved me to his left side, effectively _____ing me from most of the wind."
— Sharon Bolton, Now You See Me, 2011

Quote 2: "Thirty-seven short films based on Shakespeare's plays will _____ this spring as part of Shakespeare's Globe's commemorations of the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death."
— Christopher D. Shea, New York Times, 19 November 2015

Hint 1: This word starts with the letter... S.

Hint 2: This word means both... "hide or obstruct" and "show or present."

review this word:

1. Opposites of ASSUAGE include

A. WORK and PERSIST.
B. LAZE and LANGUISH.
C. SOUR and IRRITATE.

2. In Lisa Klein's Ophelia, a character says, "Obey the Lord and his laws... and your every need will be fulfilled, your every _____ assuaged."

A. hope
B. fear
C. dream

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > ASSUAGE

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