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moderate

adjective · noun · verb

Simple meaning

Having an intermediate position between liberal and conservative.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

mahderuht

Say the bold part a little louder.

adjective: moduhruhtverb: moduhrayt

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈmɑdɚət

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Not excessive; acting in moderation

  2. USpolitics

    Having an intermediate position between liberal and conservative.

  3. Not violent or rigorous; temperate; mild; gentle.

  4. Being within reasonable or average limits; not excessive or extreme

  5. Average priced; standard-deal

  6. Mediocre

noun

  1. One who holds an intermediate position between extremes, as in politics.

verb

  1. intransitive

    To become less excessive.

  2. transitive

    To preside over (something) as a moderator.

  3. intransitive

    To act as a moderator; to assist in bringing to compromise.

  4. transitive

    To reduce the excessiveness of (something).

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Not excessive; acting in moderation

Used this way, moderate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use moderate

  • “He moderated his tone when the students burst out in tears.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Holds

moderate price

Excessive

moderate means

Other combinations

moderate sizemoderate amountmoderate degreemoderate heatmoderate exercisemoderate success

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • moderatingadjectiveInflected form

    Lessening in intensity or strength.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • moderatornounPerson or profession · specialist

    Any substance used to slow down neutrons in nuclear reactors.

  • moderatelyadverbDerived adverb

    To certain extent or degree.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • moderationnounRelated term

    Quality of being moderate and avoiding extremes.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

adjective

Sense: not excessive

temperate

noun

Sense: one who holds an intermediate position between extremes

intermediatehold

Antonyms

Sense: not excessive

immoderate

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.