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The act of mitigating, or the state of being mitigated; abatement or diminution of anything painful, harsh, severe, afflictive, or calamitous; as, the mitigation of pain, grief, rigor, severity, punishment, or penalty.

Sourness of temper; sulenness. Learn good humor, never to oppose without just reason; abate some degrees of pride and moroseness. I. Watts.

Hence: Deprivation or depression of self-approval; abatement or pride; humiliation; chagrin; vexation. We had the mortification to lose sight of Munich, Augsburg, and Ratisbon. Addison.

out protest or pity; -- sometimes applied to bailiffs, constables, etc. Thackeray. With unabated ardor the vindictive man of law and his myrmidons pressed forward. W. H. Ainsworth.

Denoting a leaving, abandonment, departure, abatement, interruption, or remission; as, the fever goes off; the pain goes off; the game is off; all bets are off.

of possession; dispossession; ejection; disseizin. Ouster of the freehold is effected by abatement, intrusion, disseizin, discontinuance, or deforcement. Blackstone. Ouster le main. Etym: [Ouster + F. la main the hand, L. manus.] (Law) A delivery of lands out of the hands of a guardian, or out of the king's hands, or…

To reduce in violence; to lessen or abate; to mitigate; to ease withhout curing; as, to palliate a disease. To palliate dullness, and give time a shove. Cowper.

ate of being limited; that which qualifies by limiting; modification; restriction; hence, abatement; diminution; as, to use words without any qualification.

Hence, to soften; to abate; to diminish; to assuage; to reduce the strength of, as liquors. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire, But qualify the fire's extreme rage. Shak.

To abate, annul, overthrow, or make void; as, to quash an indictment. Blackstone.

To be subdued or abated; to yield; to abate. [R.] Winter's wrath begins to quell. Spenser.

To abate or diminish. [Obs.] --n.

To abate; to withdraw. [Obs.] Foxe.

Breaking out again after temporary abatement or supression; as, a recrudescent epidemic.

To bring back; to restore. [Obs.] Abate your zealous haste, till morrow next again Both light of heaven and strength of men relate. Spenser.

To make less severe or rogorous; to abate the stringency of; to remit in respect to strenuousness, esrnestness, or effort; as, to relax discipline; to relax one's attention or endeavors. The stature of mortmain was at several times relaxed by the legilature. Swift.

To slacken; to abate. [Obs.] And oftentimes he would relent his pace. Spenser.

esses, weighs down, or cruches; to render less burdensome or afflicting; to allevate; to- abate; to mitigate; to lessen; as, to relieve pain; to relieve the wants of the poor.

Affording a remedy; intended for a remedy, or for the removal or abatement of an evil; as, remedial treatment. Statutes are declaratory or remedial. Blackstone. It is an evil not compensated by any beneficial result; it is not remedial, not conservative. I. Taylor.

Diminution of intensity; abatement; relaxation.