\Pal"li*ate\, a. [L. palliatus, fr. pallium a cloak.
See {Pall} the garment.]
1. Covered with a mant?e; cloaked; disguised. [Obs.] --Bp.
   Hall.
2. Eased; mitigated; alleviated. [Obs.] --Bp. Fell.

\Pal"li*ate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Palliated}; p. pr. &
vb. n. {Palliating}.]
1. To cover with a mantle or cloak; to cover up; to hide.
   [Obs.]
         Being palliated with a pilgrim's coat. --Sir T.
                                               Herbert.
2. To cover with excuses; to conceal the enormity of, by
   excuses and apologies; to extenuate; as, to palliate
   faults.
         They never hide or palliate their vices. --Swift.
3. To reduce in violence; to lessen or abate; to mitigate; to
   ease withhout curing; as, to palliate a disease.
         To palliate dullness, and give time a shove.
                                               --Cowper.
Syn: To cover; cloak; hide; extenuate; conceal.
Usage: To {Palliate}, {Extenuate}, {Cloak}. These words, as
       here compared, are used in a figurative sense in
       reference to our treatment of wrong action. We cloak
       in order to conceal completely. We extenuate a crime
       when we endeavor to show that it is less than has been
       supposed; we palliate a crime when we endeavor to
       cover or conceal its enormity, at least in part. This
       naturally leads us to soften some of its features, and
       thus palliate approaches extenuate till they have
       become nearly or quite identical. ``To palliate is not
       now used, though it once was, in the sense of wholly
       cloaking or covering over, as it might be, our sins,
       but in that of extenuating; to palliate our faults is
       not to hide them altogether, but to seek to diminish
       their guilt in part.'' --Trench.