relieve
Formsrelieves, relieving, relieved
- 1
- 2
- 3To ease a person's mind out of distress, so they no longer feel anxious or worried.
The doctor's reassurance relieved the anxious patient.
A quick text can relieve parents who are waiting up late.
Similarreassure, comfort, calm, soothe
Oppositeworry, alarm, distress
Note
Most of its everyday life is in the passive: I was greatly relieved by the jury's verdict. The thing eased need not be a person. In the American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897), Miss Thorn relieves the situation by laughing aloud. What she eases is the awkward silence, not any one guest. Its bodily counterpart is easing physical pain.
- 4To release someone from a difficulty, an unwanted task, or a responsibility.
The manager relieved her of the project so she could focus elsewhere.
Hiring an assistant can relieve him of most of the paperwork.
Similarfree, release, rid, unburden
Note
Here a burden is taken away, and the usual frame is relieve someone of something: of the paperwork, of a duty, even of a mistaken belief. James Lambert, writing in 2014, describes scholars who were relieved of a misapprehension by Major Trotter. Relieve someone from a difficulty is possible too, but of is the construction to learn first.
- 5To free someone from a post or duty by taking over their place.
The sergeant relieved the sentries at the end of their watch.
Another pilot will relieve her halfway through the long flight.
Similarreplace
Note
A soldier's word first: a sentry is relieved when the next one takes over the watch. From the guard post it spread to any work done in turns, such as a long flight on which one pilot takes over from another. The person relieved is replaced, not merely let go, and that is what separates it from release from a task.
- 6
- 7To bring military help to a besieged town, lifting the siege that surrounds it.
An allied army marched north to relieve the starving garrison.
Their fleet relieved the harbor town just before supplies ran out.
Oppositebesiege
Note
Military usage lets the object be either the place or the siege itself. John H. Makin and Norman J. Ornstein's Debt and Taxes (1994) tells how William of Orange opened the dikes in 1574 "to relieve the siege" of Leiden. Relieve a town and relieve a siege name the same rescue; only the noun changes. In both, the help arrives from outside the walls.
- 8In law, to grant someone release from a debt or legal duty.
The judge moved to relieve the defendant of liability for the accident.
Bankruptcy proceedings relieved him of most of his outstanding debts.
Similarabsolve, free, release, discharge
Note
Contracts and statutes use it in a fixed frame: relieve a party of an obligation, as in This shall not relieve either Party of any obligations. Watch the preposition of. Put in the negative, a clause like this keeps a duty alive even though some other provision might seem to cancel it. The related noun is relief, meaning what the law grants the person freed.
- 9A polite, indirect way of saying to urinate or defecate, used reflexively as to relieve oneself.
The hikers stopped to relieve themselves before the final climb.
After the long flight, she hurried to relieve herself.
Similarpee, poop, urinate, defecate, piss
Note
Polite without being prim: relieve oneself is plain enough for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Snyder v. Harmon (1989), where a passenger "had to relieve himself." It always takes the reflexive pronoun (himself, themselves). Drop the pronoun and the euphemism disappears. The same phrase can also mean easing sexual desire, but only when the surrounding talk is about desire.
- 10A polite way of saying to ease one's own sexual desire, often by masturbating to orgasm.
Some counselors tell celibate clients it is fine to relieve themselves when desire becomes distracting, rather than look for a partner.
Aroused and alone, he relieved himself before drifting off to sleep.
Similarmasturbate, wank, fap
Note
The reflexive euphemism that depends on its surroundings. Abbie Smith's Celibate Sex (2014) uses relieve oneself in a discussion of desire and celibacy, where it can only mean masturbation. Like the bathroom euphemism, it is discreet enough for frank but polite writing. Without talk of arousal nearby, though, readers will take it the other way.
Less common meanings
- 11To bring someone out of danger or free them from a particular hardship.
They prayed that providence would relieve the sailors from the storm's fury.
The hero relieved the captives from their cruel bondage.
Note
Rescue pictured as lifting: a person is raised out of danger, much as the old "lift up" meaning would suggest. Now archaic, it belongs to elevated prose and puts from before the trouble, as in relieve the sailors from the storm. Modern relieve has moved toward easing a burden rather than hauling a person clear, so this use now sounds deliberately old.
- 12To make something stand out or appear prominent; to bring it into relief.
Careful shading can relieve the foreground against the darker sky.
The night whose sable breast relieves the stark / White stars is no less lovely being dark
1927, Countee Cullen, From the Dark TowerNote
A painter's and poet's sense, tied to relief in sculpture: a shape is relieved when contrast throws it forward. In Byron's Don Juan (1819), deeply dyed henna makes the skin it sets off look fairer. Countee Cullen in 1927 still writes of the night "whose sable breast relieves the stark / White stars." Now archaic, it reads as literary. In plain prose, say set off or bring into relief.
- 13To lift something up; to raise it once more.
Note
The root meaning, and the image behind the later ones. Latin relevo, "to lift up, lighten", is built from re- "back" and levo "to lift", and it reached English through Old French relever. The same levo sits in levity and levant, and relevate is a doublet. As a plain verb of raising it is obsolete. Use lift or raise instead, and expect this meaning only in older writing.
Practice
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Origin
From Late Middle English 'releven', borrowed from Old French 'relever', which came from Latin 'relevo' ('to lift up, lighten, relieve, alleviate'), a combination of 're-' ('back') and 'levo' ('to lift').