Word.ws English Dictionary

lessened

lessened is the simple past and past participle of lessen.

Meaning of lessen

Verb

lessen (third-person singular simple present lessens, present participle lessening, simple past and past participle lessened)

  1. (transitive) To make less; to diminish; to reduce.
    • a. 1686, Benjamin Calamy, a sermon
      Charity […] shall lessen his punishment.
    Synonyms:
    blunt
  2. (intransitive) To become less.
    Synonyms:
    abate

See all 3 meanings of lessen

Adjective

lessened

  1. Having been lessened.

Words formed from lessened

Questions about lessened

What does lessened mean?
Lessened means having been lessened.
What is lessened the simple past and past participle of?
Lessened is the simple past and past participle of lessen.
What part of speech is lessened?
Lessened is an adjective.

Words near lessened in the dictionary

  1. lesseeship
  2. lesseeships
  3. lessemsaurid
  4. lessen
  5. lessenable
  6. lessened
  7. lessener
  8. lesseners
  9. lessenest
  10. lesseneth
  11. lessening

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lessened (page history and authors); lessen (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-lessened.wav.

Cite this entry: “lessened.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lessened. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.