Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Tending or serving to palliate.
- adjective Alleviating the symptoms of a disease or disorder, especially one that is terminal, when a cure is not available.
- noun One that palliates, especially a palliative drug or medicine.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Palliating; extenuating; serving to extenuate by excuses or favorable representation.
- Mitigating or alleviating, as pain or disease.
- noun That which extenuates: as, a palliative of guilt.
- noun That which mitigates, alleviates, or abates, as the violence of pain, disease, or other evil.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Serving to palliate; serving to extenuate, mitigate, or alleviate.
- noun That which palliates; a palliative agent.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective medicine Minimising the progression of a
disease and relievingundesirable symptoms for as long as possible, rather than attempting to cure the (usuallyincurable ) disease. - noun medicine Something that
palliates , particularly a palliativemedicine .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun remedy that alleviates pain without curing
- adjective moderating pain or sorrow by making it easier to bear
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word palliative.
Examples
-
She avoided the phrase palliative care because care, she wrote, “is a soft word” that would never win respectability in the medical world.
-
She avoided the phrase palliative care because care, she wrote, “is a soft word” that would never win respectability in the medical world.
-
She avoided the phrase palliative care because care, she wrote, “is a soft word” that would never win respectability in the medical world.
-
By what we term palliative treatment alone more cures are effected than by the old process of treatment with nitric acid.
-
Rather than shirking from the term palliative care, they have thrown their weight and credibility behind it in a further effort to educate clinicians and consumers about palliative care and to reduce stigma associated with the term.
-
The getting-over-it approach is to continue to actively work to reduce and debunk the misconceptions and stigma associated with the term palliative care.
-
Most of the patients they see in palliative care was cancer patients, but they are now seeing more cardiovascular problems, respiratory cases, HIV/AIDS, and end-stage cardiac or renal disease.
-
Most of the patients they see in palliative care was cancer patients, but they are now seeing more cardiovascular problems, respiratory cases, HIV/AIDS, and end-stage cardiac or renal disease.
-
There is a combined program with Critical Care Medicine in palliative care.
-
She founded the palliative medical field of music -- thanatology and the Chalice of Repose Project, which trains teachers in palliative music vigils with the dying.
Alison Rose Levy: What Would You Do If You Did Not Fear Death?
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.