moderate
Verbmoderates, moderating, moderated
Noun pluralmoderates
Formsmoderates, moderating, moderated
Pluralmoderates
- 1Not excessive in amount or degree; kept within reasonable limits or done in moderation.
A moderate intake of caffeine is unlikely to cause problems.
The committee recommended moderate spending increases over the next decade.
Similarmodest, reasonable, restrained, temperate
Oppositeexcessive, extreme, immoderate
Note
The root sense, and the one the word's history explains best. Latin moderātus came from moderor, 'to regulate, restrain', and ultimately from modus, 'measure'. The same stem gave modestus. Something moderate has been kept to measure, whether speed, language or belief. It describes people as readily as amounts: a moderate Calvinist, or the moderate members of Jonathan Swift's The Presbyterians Plea of Merit (1731). That use for people is the seed of the noun for a centrist.
- 2
- 3To reduce the excessiveness or intensity of something; to make something less extreme.
The senator moderated her rhetoric after the criticism.
Ocean currents moderate temperatures along the coast.
Similarsoften, temper, mitigate
Oppositeintensify, heighten, exacerbate
Note
The verb came through Middle English moderaten, 'to restrain, curb', and it still means pulling something back toward measure. Its objects are often physical forces rather than feelings. John Arbuthnot, in 1731, has an astringent that moderates the relaxing quality of warm water. In positron physics, source positrons are moderated into a beam of a single energy, close kin to the reactor sense. Temper and mitigate are its nearest substitutes.
- 4To become less excessive or intense; to subside toward a milder level.
Inflation is expected to moderate over the coming year.
The storm moderated overnight, leaving only light rain by morning.
Oppositeintensify, escalate, worsen
Note
The self-acting partner of the 'temper something' verb. Here no one moderates anything; the subject eases on its own, and the verb takes no object. People do it as well as storms and prices: someone who was an extremist may moderate later in life. In everyday speech, settle down, cool and soften are its natural substitutes.
- 5Of an illness, symptom, or condition: intermediate in severity, more serious than mild but less serious than severe.
Patients with moderate asthma may need daily medication.
The scan showed moderate damage to the liver.
Note
A clinician's grade: the middle step of mild, moderate, severe. Each condition or assessment tool sets its own thresholds, so moderate asthma and moderate liver damage are measured in quite different ways. Do not hear the word as reassurance. Here moderate means the problem is more than mild. It does not mean the problem is kept within bounds, as the everyday 'not excessive' meaning would suggest.
- 6Holding a political position intermediate between liberal and conservative; centrist.
The senator built her career on moderate positions that appealed to swing voters.
Moderate Republicans broke with their party on the immigration bill.
Similarcentrist
Note
American politics measures this position on a single line running from liberal to conservative. The adjective often sits directly before a party name, as in a moderate Democrat or a moderate Republican, to mark someone open to crossing party lines. Moderate voters are often courted as the decisive bloc in close elections. Centrist names the same place on the line more neutrally.
- 7A person whose position lies between extremes, especially in politics.
The party's moderates pushed back against the more radical proposals.
He governed as a moderate, frustrating activists on both flanks.
Similarcentrist
Note
A word that needs an opposite in the room: moderates are set against extremists, fanatics or hardliners, and that contrast is usually the point. It is most often plural, the moderates, and it travels beyond party politics. Christian Wolmar, writing in RAIL in 2022, calls the union leader Mick Lynch a moderate facing hardliners on his executive. Churches have their moderates too, among them the 18th-century Scottish church party.
- 8To preside over a discussion, debate, or other proceeding, guiding it and keeping participants within the rules.
A veteran journalist will moderate the presidential debate.
She moderated the panel with a light touch, letting the experts spar.
Note
Church government is one natural home for this sense: one moderates a synod, just as one moderates a televised debate. The verb takes the event as its object, not the people in it. Chair and arbitrate are near neighbors, but they differ. You chair a meeting by running it, and you arbitrate a dispute by settling it. To moderate is to guide the exchange and keep it orderly.
- 9To act as a moderator; to help opposing sides move toward compromise.
A retired judge agreed to moderate between the two unions.
She moderated skillfully, drawing out the quieter voices during the forum.
Note
The intransitive use stands where no object is named: someone simply moderates, between two parties or over a conversation. It has found a newer home in online comment sections. There, moderating means keeping a discussion within its rules rather than brokering a deal. The two ideas meet in presiding over a debate.
- 10
Less common meanings
- 11Average in price; reasonably affordable, neither a bargain nor a luxury.
The restaurant offers excellent seafood at moderate prices.
For a moderate fee, the museum offers guided tours every afternoon.
Similarreasonable, affordable, modest
Oppositeexorbitant, steep
- 12To supply a nuclear reactor with a moderator, a substance that slows neutrons and so makes fission more likely.
Heavy water moderates certain reactor designs while absorbing very few neutrons.
Designers of the first pile chose graphite to moderate the assembly, since heavy water was scarce.
Note
Reactor engineers use the verb mostly as a past participle, joined to the material that does the slowing: a graphite-moderated reactor, a water-moderated design. The usual moderators are light water, heavy water and graphite. Their nuclei slow fast neutrons to thermal energies through elastic collisions, and slower neutrons are more likely to cause further fission.
- 13A member of the party dominant in the 18th-century Church of Scotland, lax in doctrine and discipline but intolerant of evangelicalism and popular rights.
As a moderate, he preached polished sermons on virtue and avoided the fervor of the evangelical pulpit.
The moderates controlled the General Assembly and forced unpopular ministers on unwilling congregations.
Note
A label from Scottish church history, best understood through the splits its party provoked: the secessions of 1733 and 1761, and finally the Disruption of 1843. It belongs in writing about that period. Keep it apart from the general noun for a centrist. These moderates were not mild peacemakers; they were notably intolerant of evangelicalism and of popular rights.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of moderate apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origins
From Middle English moderat, borrowed from Latin moderātus, the participle of moderor ("to regulate, restrain, moderate"), which comes from modus ("measure"): the same root behind mode and modest.
Formed by turning the adjective 'moderate' into a noun, using the noun-forming suffix -ate (see Etymology 1).
From Middle English moderaten ("to restrain, curb; to modify"), from moderate + the verb-forming suffix -en, borrowed from Latin moderātus (see Etymology 1).