remission
noun · verb
Simple meaning
An abatement or lessening of the manifestations of a disease.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
reemishuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɹiˈmɪʃən
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
medicine
An abatement or lessening of the manifestations of a disease; a period where the symptoms of a disease are absent.
A lessening of amount due, as in either money or work, or intensity of a thing.
law
A reduction or cancellation of the penalty for a criminal offence; in particular, the reduction of a prison sentence as a recognition of the prisoner's good behaviour.
An act of remitting, returning, or sending back.
verb
transitive
To change the mission of; to provide with a new mission.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An abatement or lessening of the manifestations of a disease; a period where the symptoms of a disease are absent.
Used this way, remission is a specialist word with a faintly unfavourable edge. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use remission
- “His cancer is in remission.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The act of absolving or remitting.
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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.