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lessen

verb
/ˈlɛsən/

Etymology

From Middle English lessenen, lasnen, equivalent to less + -en (verbal suffix).

  1. inherited from lessenen

Definitions

  1. To make less

    To make less; to diminish; to reduce.

    • a. 1686, Benjamin Calamy, a sermon Charity […] shall lessen his punishment.
    • December 6, 1709, Francis Atterbury, a sermon preach'd before the sons of the clergy at their anniversary-meeting in the Church of St. Paul St. Paul chose to magnify his office when ill men conspired to lessen it.
    • The thin glass that makes mirror tiles light in weight also tends to lessen their reflective quality.

  2. To become less.

  3. unless.

    • She was fine-looking; he couldn't find a fault with her 'lessen he made it up.
    • No more work outta them lessen they paid now.

The neighborhood

Derived

lessenable, lessener, unlessening

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at lessen. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01lessen02reduce03inferior04rank05unmitigated06mitigated07lessened

A definitional loop anchored at lessen. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at lessen

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA