Mitigation Meaning: Here’s What It Means and How To Use It

Mitigation is a highly relevant word in the world today. Countless different situations can cause harm, grief, and offense to many people. The act of mitigating these risks can help reduce the likelihood of potentially disasterous circumstances. 

Mitigation is a mindset and action that can lead to a safer and more accessible future. This is what mitigation is, where the word comes from, and how to use it in the modern world. 

What Does Mitigation Mean?

The abatement of excess risk and the prevention of disaster is crucial in politics, global warming, and criminal law. Mitigation is the action of reducing the painfulness, severity, or seriousness of an imminent negative event. 

Mitigation strategies are typically accomplished by implementing preventative measures, risk management, and safety practices. Mitigation measures and mitigation planning usually happen to preserve something against the harmful effects of hazards. 

Even when there isn’t a perfect remedy available, mitigation can keep people safe from natural threats, financial risks, and other long-term risks. The goal of mitigation in many circumstances is a reduction of harmful effects, even if the negative situation isn’t entirely preventable. 

What Is the Etymology of Mitigation?

Mitigation is the noun form of the verb mitigate. Like many words in the English language, the word mitigate comes from the Latin language, along with Old French.

The Latin word mitigare, which means alleviate, slowly transitioned over time to the word mitigation, which was incorporated into the English as mitigate. The meaning of mitigation has remained virtually the same throughout its history as a word, unlike many other words whose meanings have shifted over time.

What Does Mitigation Look Like in the Real World?

In the real world, mitigation is discussed chiefly within the contexts of politics and judicial systems, disaster aversion such as environmental mitigation, and risk management, which is also called mitigation of risk. 

Understanding each of these uses within their own contexts is critical to understanding mitigation and using the word and concept properly within the modern world. Here is how the word mitigation is most commonly used today. 

Politics and Judicial Systems

When mitigation is used in a government setting, it usually has to do with the mitigation of punishment, the mitigation of a sentence, or the mitigation of censorship. 

When the result of one’s actions places them within the judicial system with the potential of jail or prison time, their lawyers or representatives will often propose ways to mitigate their punishments. The decision-makers, including the judges and leaders, will have to choose whether or not they want to repeal their own rulings. 

Disaster Aversion

One of the most recognizable kinds of mitigation is disaster mitigation, which is also commonly known as climate change mitigation. The ultimate goal of this kind of mitigation is to reduce the likelihood of a natural disaster like a tornado, earthquake, or flood for countries, landowners, and humanity at large. 

People who work on this kind of mitigation typically focus on lowering the emission of greenhouse gases, enforcing climate regulations, and using their resources to inform and educate people on how to treat the Earth well. 

Risk Management

The primary focus of risk mitigation is using intelligence and new technologies to reduce risks in various situations. 

Often, risk mitigation is used in businesses to make sure that they are operating as safely as possible, with as few potentially dangerous risks as they can. These risk managers set up firewalls and other software that can block potential virtual risks from incurring harm to businesses, local communities, and critical facilities. 

What Are Synonyms for Mitigation?

One of the best ways to learn what a word means is to look at its related terms. Through the comparison, you will often identify what a word means in a more profound and usable kind of way. 

Knowing synonyms is also a great way to ensure that your vocabulary is varied and exciting and boring or repetitive. Cultivating a highly diverse and flavorful language will help you have as much clarity and understanding in your conversation as possible! 

Here are some of the most popular and usable synonyms for mitigate and mitigation:

• Alleviate
• Reduce
• Ease
• Lessen
• Relieve
• Palliate
• Diminish
• Assuage
• Allay
• Soften
• Temper
• Soothe
• Lighten
• Moderate
• Decrease
• Attenuate
• Extenuate
• Minimize
• Weaken
• Mollify
• Cushion
• Appease
• Dull
• Deaden
• Limit

Examples of Mitigation in Real-World Conversations

The best way to learn how to use a word is by looking at it being used in real-world contexts. Here are some example sentences that illustrate the word mitigate being appropriately used. 

• The government of Paris did everything it could to mitigate the adverse effects of theft in their city markets. 
• Even though I was born and raised in the floodplains, we were advised to move away from them to mitigate personal risk to ourselves and our family. 
• To mitigate the risk of the company collapsing, the stakeholders decided that the type of action that they needed to take was aggressive, swift, and forceful. 
• To mitigate the effects of their recent copyright strike, the creators appealed to the court in an incredibly submissive way. 
• Princeton University recently posted a video online about their newest component of emergency management, which will allow them to mitigate risk much more effectively. 

Now that you know more about the word mitigation, you can start using it in your daily vocabulary and increase the quality of your discourse. This is a significant and influential way to show people what kind of person you are and display your literary knowledge. 

Sources: 

1. Mitigation Definition & Meaning | Merriam-Webster
2. Mitigation Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
3. Mitigation and Adaptation | Solutions – Climate Change: Vital Signs | NASA