palliate

To relieve the symptoms of; to ameliorate.

And if there are some bankers out there who are still embarrassed by the size of their bonuses, then I propose that they palliate their guilt by giving to the Mayor's Fund for London to help deprived children in London.

To hide or disguise.

To cover or disguise the seriousness of (a mistake, offence etc.) by excuses and apologies.

April 5 1628, Bishop Joseph Hall, The Blessings, Sins, and Judgments of God's Vineyard We extenuate not our guilt : whatever we sin , we condemn it as mortal : they palliate wickedness , with the fair pretence of veniality

The young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper, which there had been nothing in the physician's words to excuse or palliate.

To lessen the severity of; to extenuate, moderate, qualify.

"Ah, dearest!" replied he, "your spirits are exhausted,—perhaps unconsciously oppressed with the idea of that future whose pain and whose peril I have rather heightened than palliated."

If, mindless of palliating circumstances, we are bound to regard the death of the Master-at-arms as the prisoner's deed, then does that deed constitute a capital crime whereof the penalty is a mortal one?

To placate or mollify.

Bradly stopped dead, too confounded to be appalled. Young Podson! Impossible! He had last seen young Podson, a bank clerk, on the seat of a pub verandah in an inland town ninety miles away, Bradly's last painting town. A noosance, young Podson, only to be palliated on a pub verandah after dinner.

[Gordon] Brown's options for the machinery of Whitehall are constrained, as for all prime ministers, by the need to palliate allies and hug enemies close (John Reid, say).

Hidden, concealed.

(of a cure) superficial or temporary.

All his industry and sales, did in your estate make but a palliate cure.