Pal"li*ate (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Palliated(?); p. pr. & vb. n.
Palliating(?).] 1. To cover with a mantle or cloak; to cover up; to
hide. [Obs.]
Being palliated with a pilgrim's coat.
Sir T. Herbert.
2. To cover with excuses; to conceal the enormity of, by excuses and
apologies; to extenuate; as, to palliate faults.
They never hide or palliate their vices.
Swift.
3. 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.
Syn. -- To cover; cloak; hide; extenuate; conceal. -- To Palliate,
Extenuate, Cloak. These words, as here compared, are used in a
figurative sense in reference to our treatment of wrong action. We
cloak in order to conceal completely. We extenuate a crime when we
endeavor to show that it is less than has been supposed; we palliate a
crime when we endeavor to cover or conceal its enormity, at least in
part. This naturally leads us to soften some of its features, and thus
palliate approaches extenuate till they have become nearly or quite
identical. "To palliate is not now used, though it once was, in the
sense of wholly cloaking or covering over, as it might be, our sins,
but in that of extenuating; to palliate our faults is not to hide them
altogether, but to seek to diminish their guilt in part." Trench.
Pal`li*a"tion (?), n. [Cf. F. palliation.] 1. The act of palliating, or
state of being palliated; extenuation; excuse; as, the palliation of
faults, offenses, vices.