- 1減少；減輕（痛、壓力、重要性都可以 lessen）
To lessen is to become smaller, or to make something smaller — not only in size, but in strength, importance, pain, or value. Pain can lessen after medicine. A problem can lessen if people fix part of it. A government may try to lessen the cost of food. It is a slightly formal verb, but not rare; in speech people also say reduce, ease, die down, or get less. It is simply less plus -en, an old ending that turns an adjective into a verb, the same kind of ending as in , darken, and . It has nothing to do with a lesson in class, though the two words sound almost the same, and that is the trap.
From the word’s history
From Middle English lessenen, lasnen; less + -en.
源自中古英文 lessenen，就是 less 加上 -en。
組成less + -en (the old verb ending that means become, or make). From Middle English lessenen, lasnen.
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
lessenverb/ˈlɛsən/
- 1
To make less; to diminish; to reduce.
- a. 1686, Benjamin Calamy, a sermon Charity […] shall lessen his punishment.
- December 6, 1709, Francis Atterbury, a sermon preach'd before the sons of the clergy at their anniversary-meeting in the Church of St. Paul St. Paul chose to magnify his office when ill men conspired to lessen it.
- 2
To become less.
lessenconj/ˈlɛsən/
- 1
dialectalunless.
- Ober closed his encomium with the serious statement that “Lessen he could marry Miss Jennie he would be a bachelor the balance of his life," to which the drayman replied that " If Oi were Miss Janie Oi'd black yer oi the minute ye thought of such a thing. The oidee."
- She was fine-looking; he couldn't find a fault with her 'lessen he made it up.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。