It's Marian Webster's Word of the Day for December 13th.
Today's word is alleviate, spelled A-L-L-E-V-I-A-T-E.
Alleviate is a verb.
To alleviate something is to make it less painful, difficult, or severe.
Alleviate can also mean to partially remove or correct.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Footwear News by Rosemary Feidelberg.
The funds are meant to alleviate monetary barriers and enhance the fashion industry's talent pipeline.
Now for a bit of light reading.
The word alleviate comes from the Latin word levis, meaning having little weight.
Levis also gave rise to the English adjective light, as in not heavy.
In its early days during the 16th century,
alleviate could mean both to cause something to have less weight,
or to make something more tolerable.
The literal make lighter sense is no longer used, and today only the relieve lessen sense remains.
Incidentally, not only is alleviate a synonym of relieve, it's also a cousin.
Relief comes from the Latin word levare, meaning to raise, which in turn comes from levice.
With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.