Something that abates becomes fewer or less intense. Your enthusiasm for skiing might abate after falling off a ski lift and getting a mouthful of snow.
- Pronunciation: /ə'bet/
- English Description: decrease in size, extent, or range
- Chinese Translation: 减轻(jian3 qing1)
- Spanish Translation: disminuir
- STORY: Abate comes from the Old French verb abattre, "to beat down," and means to reduce or become less intense or numerous. As an intransitive verb, it is often used with something physically, emotionally, or figuratively violent, as in "the flood of fan mail began to abate." Using it transitively, if you take measures to abate pollution or noise, you reduce them. Pronounce abatewith the stress on the second syllable (uh-BATE).
- So even as the disease abates, other crises have emerged.
- The confusion about the precise nature of the US military’s policy towards transgender service members shows no sign of abating in the foreseeable future.
*New word description, story and part of "EXAMPLE SENTENCE" are cited in Vocabulary.com