assuage

English

Alternative forms

• asswage (obsolete)
• suage, swage, tasswage (obsolete, poetic)

Etymology

From Middle English aswagen, from Old French asuagier (“to appease, to calm”), from Vulgar Latin *assuāviō (“I sweeten, I butter up, I calm”), derived from Latin ad- + suāvis (“sweet”) + -iō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈsweɪd͡ʒ/

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  • Rhymes: -eɪdʒ
• (US, regional) IPA^(key): /əˈswɑʒ/
  • Rhymes: -ɑːʒ
• Hyphenation: as‧suage

Verb

assuage (third-person singular simple present assuages, present participle assuaging, simple past and past participle assuaged)

1. (transitive) To lessen the intensity of, to mitigate or relieve (hunger, emotion, pain etc.).
   • 1705, J[oseph] Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     Refreshing winds the summer's heat assuage.

   • 1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made upon Him and His Pension, , 10th edition, London: J. Owen, , and F and C Rivington, , →OCLC:

     to assuage the sorrows of a desolate old man

   • 1816, Lord Byron, “Canto III”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Third, London: Printed for John Murray, , →OCLC, stanza CX:

     the fount at which the panting mind assuages
     her thirst of knowledge

   • 1864 November 21, Abraham Lincoln (signed) or John Hay, letter to Mrs. Bixby in Boston

     I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost.

2. (transitive) To pacify or soothe (someone).
3. (intransitive, obsolete) To calm down, become less violent (of passion, hunger etc.); to subside, to abate.

Derived terms

• assuageable
• assuagement
• assuager
• unassuaged

Translations

References

• “assuage”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “assuage”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “assuage”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Anagrams

• sausage

Middle English

Verb

assuage

1. Alternative form of aswagen