palliate

Definition

To make something slightly less awful by hiding, softening, or dressing up its true nature. While it can mean relieving symptoms, it often means masking a problem with excuses—legally, this means downplaying the seriousness of misconduct.

Example Usage

The company attempted to palliate its environmental violations with a half-hearted apology and token cleanup efforts.

Source: Merriam-Webster via Free Dictionary API

Related Terms

Intermediate

embezzlement

The white-collar crime where trusted employees prove they can't be trusted by helping themselves to company funds. It's theft with extra steps and a fancier vocabulary, typically involving someone with financial access who decides their employer's money would look better in their own account. Unlike robbery, embezzlement requires both access and the audacity to pretend it's totally normal to redirect corporate funds to your offshore vacation fund.

⚖️ Legal

Advanced

Malum In Se

Latin for 'bad in itself'—conduct that is inherently morally wrong (like murder), as distinguished from malum prohibitum (bad only because it's prohibited by law).

⚖️ Legal

Beginner

defective

Having one or more flaws that prevent proper functioning, like your supposedly waterproof phone or that new hire who can't figure out the copier. In product liability law, this term launches a thousand lawsuits. In grammar, it describes verbs so irregular they're missing entire conjugations, like 'must' having no past tense—ironically defective themselves.

⚖️ Legal

Beginner

trademark

The legal claim your company makes on words, symbols, or phrases so competitors can't swoop in and confuse customers with knockoff branding. It's essentially corporate identity protection, the thing that keeps every coffee shop from calling itself Starbucks and every sneaker from sporting a swoosh. You can trademark almost anything distinctive enough, from logos to slogans to that specific shade of purple your competitor desperately wishes they could use.

⚖️ Legal

Beginner

advocate

A professional arguer who gets paid to passionately champion causes, clients, or cases they may or may not personally believe in. These persuasion specialists range from courtroom lawyers arguing legal technicalities to policy wonks lobbying for legislation to activists fighting for social change. The term conveniently sounds more noble than "hired gun" while describing essentially the same function.

⚖️ Legal

Beginner

Notarize

The act of having someone with a fancy stamp watch you sign a document, which somehow makes it more official than just signing it yourself. The adult version of getting your permission slip signed.

⚖️ Legal

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Beginner

passion tax

The lower compensation that employees accept to work at mission-driven startups or in attractive industries like gaming ...