mitigation

noun

mit·​i·​ga·​tion ˌmi-tə-ˈgā-shən 

plural mitigations

: the act of mitigating something or the state of being mitigated : the process or result of making something less severe, dangerous, painful, harsh, or damaging

mitigation of suffering

mitigation of punishment

There was, in sum, a period during the Cold War … when a mitigation of the Cold War, including a renegotiation of some of its most troublesome tensions, was possible or even probable.

—John Lukacs

Examples of mitigation in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Florida has some of the strictest building codes in the United States, especially concerning wind mitigation to protect structures from the high-speed winds associated with hurricanes. —Sara Kendall, Miami Herald, 7 May 2024

The service is fully managed by Microsoft and limited to customers which already have a partnership with the company, are using it for lower risk cases, and which are focused on mitigations. —Britney Nguyen, Quartz, 3 May 2024

Frizzell serves on the city’s Fire Safety Advisory Committee, which recommends wildfire mitigation work to the City Council. —Stephen Hobbs, Sacramento Bee, 2 May 2024

Director of climate change mitigation at Kawerak Leah Valdes. —Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 29 Apr. 2024

Local agencies, like the county fire department, and local companies, like Hawaiian Electric, have been under scrutiny for their involvement in fire preparation, wildfire mitigation and the response to the wildfires. —Kiara Alfonseca, ABC News, 17 Apr. 2024

Over many years, engineers used the inertia characteristics of the grid to determine how fast a power grid will change its frequency when a failure occurs, and then developed mitigation procedures based on that information. —Benjamin Kroposki, IEEE Spectrum, 13 Apr. 2024

But in countries undergoing economic transition and seeing a greater uptake of smoking, the lung cancer rates are likely to continue to climb for the next few decades without mitigation. —Kinsey Crowley, USA TODAY, 4 Apr. 2024

This will require global investments in data collection and analysis, as well as concerted efforts to evaluate the impact of mitigation and adaptation strategies on population health. —Kari Nadeau, STAT, 4 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

mitigation

noun

mit·​i·​ga·​tion ˌmit-ə-ˈgā-shən 

1

: the act of mitigating or state of being mitigated

the cure, prevention, or mitigation of disease

—Encyclopedia Americana

2

: something that mitigates

a large number of drugs and mitigations … at the clinic

—The Journal of the American Medical Association