lenify

From Latin lenis (“soft, mild”) + -fy. Compare French lénifier. See lenition.

• IPA^(key): /ˈliːnɪfaɪ/, /ˈlɛnɪfaɪ/

lenify (third-person singular simple present lenifies, present participle lenifying, simple past and past participle lenified)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To assuage or mitigate; to soften (fever/pain/effects etc.).
   • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:

     And it is used for squinancies and inflammations in the throat ; whereby it seemeth to have a mollifying and lenifying virtue

   • 1697, Virgil, “The Twelfth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     These first infused, to lenify the pain
     He tugs with pincers, but he tugs in vain

• “lenify”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Finley, finely