Trending: mitigation

Lookups spiked 1,800% on May 5, 2020

Why are people looking up mitigation?

Mitigation was among our top lookups on May 5th, 2020, after President Trump used the word several times in his remarks on the expected death toll from COVID-19.

What does mitigation mean?

We define mitigation as “the process or result of making something less severe, dangerous, painful, harsh, or damaging; the act of mitigating something or the state of being mitigated.” Mitigate, which comes from the Latin mitis (“soft”) has several meanings, including “to cause to become less harsh or hostile," “to make less severe or painful,” and “extenuate.”

Citations

But, alas! this child, for whom they had devoutly returned thanks to God, and offered so many fervent prayers, was soon taken from them by death. The churches of Geneva and Lausanne showed the parent marks of sympathy. Feeble mitigations of so heavy a trial!
New York Observer and Chronicle, 14 Aug. 1856

Trend Watch is a data-driven report on words people are looking up at much higher search rates than normal. While most trends can be traced back to the news or popular culture, our focus is on the lookup data rather than the events themselves.


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