Pronounced: suh-FROZE-uh-nee, noun
Notes: Strange pronunciation for a word I didn’t know
Yesterday’s word
The word palliate means
- to cover by excuses and apologies
- to moderate the intensity of
First usage
This word traces back to the 1400s
Background / Comments
We go back to Roman times for this word. The Romans had a cloak they called a toga. They called the cloak that the Greeks word a pallium. This word became palliatus in Late Latin and it came from that word into English. However, in English, the word never meant a physical cloak, but was used the figurative sense for “protection”. The early meaning of the word was “to lessen the intensity of a disease”, with the idea that the symptoms would be eased, without curing the underlying disease. As with many words, the meaning became more generalized and now has a meaning similar to gloss or whitewash (disguising something bad).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 