Mitigate vs. Militate: Usage Guide
Mitigate is sometimes used as an intransitive (followed by against) where militate might be expected. Even though Faulkner used it
William Faulkner
and one critic thinks it should be called an American idiom, it is usually considered a mistake.
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The meaning of mitigate is straightforward enough: to make something—such as a problem, symptom, or punishment—less harsh or severe. Sometimes, however, mitigate appears where the similar-looking militate is expected. That word, which is often followed by against, means “to have weight or effect,” as in “your unexcused absences are likely to militate against your getting a promotion.” The two words are not closely related (mitigate comes from the Latin verb mitigare, meaning “to soften,” whereas militate traces to militare, meaning “to engage in warfare”), but the confusion between the two has existed for long enough that some usage commentators have accepted “mitigate against” as an idiomatic alternative to militate. Even William Faulkner used mitigate in this way in his 1932 short story, Centaur in Brass, writing “It's as though there were some intangible and invisible social force that mitigates against him.” Unless you’re Faulkner, though, it’s probably best to keep mitigate and militate distinct.
Synonyms
Examples of mitigate in a Sentence
William Langewiesche, Atlantic, May 2005
… a genre novel whose inevitable cinematic ending doesn't mitigate the visceral and emotional power of what has come before. It lingers in the memory like a very bad dream.
—Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books, 14 Aug. 2003
For 65 holes Norman dominated the classic rolling fairways and small, subtle greens of Olympic … with driving and iron play so solid that it mitigated mediocre putting.
—Jaime Diaz, Sports Illustrated, 8 Nov. 1993
Emergency funds are being provided to help mitigate the effects of the disaster.
medicines used to mitigate a patient's suffering
Alena Botros, Fortune, 22 June 2024
But the state government workforce here has, for the most part, been shrinking for decades as governors and legislators use attrition to balance budgets and mitigate tax hikes.
—Keith M. Phaneuf, Hartford Courant, 21 June 2024
These are typically corrected or mitigated during the inspection.
—Jacqueline Pinedo, Sacramento Bee, 21 June 2024
To mitigate this, the Saudi government is planting more trees around Hajj sites and has coated the ground in heat-reflective pavement.
—Aya Batrawy, NPR, 21 June 2024
See all Example Sentences for mitigate 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mitigate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near mitigate
Cite this Entry
“Mitigate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mitigate. Accessed 27 Jun. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
mitigate
verb
Medical Definition
mitigate
transitive verb
Legal Definition
mitigate
verb
Estate of Arrowwood v. State, 894 P.2d 642 (1995)
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