assuagement

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The action of assuaging; appeasement.

   “He many woordes of comfort ſpake her feare away too chace. / But nought hee could perſwade therein too make her like the cace. / This laſt aſſwagement of her greef he added in the end, / Which was the onely thing that made her loving hart too bend.”

   “[T]he aſſwagement of his [a wise man's] diſcontent conſiſts in two things, formerly preſcribed as remedies againſt corporeall pain; viz. Diverſion of his thoughts from his loſſe, or the cause of it; and an application of them to thoſe things, which he knowes to be gratefull and pleaſant to his mind.”

   “I had thought two years ago that sex was simply a sensuous craving, an appetite needing assuagement and trailing with it a sense of beauty.”

2. (countable, uncountable)The condition of being assuaged.

   “So all that night they paſt in great diſeaſe, / Till that the morning, bringing earely light / To guide mens labours, brought them alſo eaſe, / And ſome aſſwagement of their painefull plight.”

   “This was the sole consideration, that afforded any degree of assuagement to her sufferings.”

   “Writing, it was like a heavenly balm, it was like the flowing out of deep waters, it was like the lifting of a load from the spirit; it brought with it a sense of relief, of assuagement.”

   “He leaned forward pressing the tightened muscles below his ribs and then began to rock back and forth, like a pendulum. So regular was the rocking that it would seem that no assuagement of grief could result from so mechanical a rhythm.”

3. (countable, uncountable)An assuaging medicine or application.

   “Far down below the Christian captives pine / In dungeon depths, and whoso dares to bring / Assuagements for their wounds, or food, or wine, / Must brave the fiercest vengeance of the king.”