"mitigation" in the noun sense
1. extenuation, mitigation, palliation
to act in such a way as to cause an offense to seem less serious
2. extenuation, mitigation
a partial excuse to mitigate censure an attempt to represent an offense as less serious than it appears by showing mitigating circumstances
3. moderation, mitigation
the action of lessening in severity or intensity
"the object being control or moderation of economic depressions"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
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