Library / English Dictionary

ABATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Become less in amount or intensity

Example:

The rain let up after a few hours

Synonyms:

abate; die away; let up; slack; slack off

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "abate" is one way to...):

decrease; diminish; fall; lessen (decrease in size, extent, or range)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

abatement (an interruption in the intensity or amount of something)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make less active or intense

Synonyms:

abate; slack; slake

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "abate" is one way to...):

decrease; lessen; minify (make smaller)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

abatable (capable of being abated)

abator (a person who abates a nuisance)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I often let my legs drop, and could feel no bottom; but when I was almost gone, and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my depth; and by this time the storm was much abated.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

For the purity of her intentions she could answer; and she was willing to hope, secondly, that her uncle's displeasure was abating, and would abate farther as he considered the matter with more impartiality, and felt, as a good man must feel, how wretched, and how unpardonable, how hopeless, and how wicked it was to marry without affection.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Already the sudden storm is passing, and its fierceness is abating; crowds are scattering homeward, and the sky is beginning to redden over the Yorkshire wolds.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But when some confessed they owed their greatness and wealth to sodomy, or incest; others, to the prostituting of their own wives and daughters; others, to the betraying of their country or their prince; some, to poisoning; more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy the innocent, I hope I may be pardoned, if these discoveries inclined me a little to abate of that profound veneration, which I am naturally apt to pay to persons of high rank, who ought to be treated with the utmost respect due to their sublime dignity, by us their inferiors.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)