Mitigate, Exacerbate, and Alleviate

Recognize three verbs that describe making a problem better or worse.

Policy writing, science reporting, and history often describe how actions change a problem. Mitigate means to make something less severe; it comes from Latin mitis, 'soft' or 'gentle. ' Alleviate means to relieve or lighten, especially suffering or a burden; it is related to Latin levis, 'light,' the same root as 'levity' and 'lever. ' Exacerbate means to make a problem worse; it comes from Latin acerbus, 'harsh' or 'bitter. ' Worked example: 'Planting trees along the river mitigated flooding, but building on the wetlands exacerbated it.

' The first action reduced the severity; the second intensified it. A note on usage: you mitigate a problem or its effects, not a person. A common error is 'mitigate against,' which confuses mitigate with 'militate against' (to work against). Precise verbs like these let you describe cause and effect without vague words like 'helped' or 'hurt. '

• 1Mitigate: make less severe.
• 2Alleviate: relieve or lighten a burden.
• 3Exacerbate: make worse.