verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To reduce the physical stresses in (a material). transitive
2. 2
   reduce the emphasis wordnet
3. 3
   To reduce the emotional stress in (another person); to reduce the stress in oneself. ergative
4. 4
   To reduce the emphasis or stress on; de-emphasize. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms

calm downde emphasizede-emphasisede-emphasizerelaxwind down

Etymology

From de- + stress.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.