mollifiers
|mol-li-fi-ers|
🇺🇸
/ˈmɑlɪfaɪərz/
🇬🇧
/ˈmɒlɪfaɪəz/
(mollifier)
to soften / soothe
Etymology
'mollifier' originates from Latin, specifically the word 'mollificare', where 'mollis' meant 'soft' and the suffix '-ficare' (from facere) meant 'to make'.
'mollificare' passed into Old French/Medieval Latin as forms like 'mollifier' and entered English via French/Latin influence; the verb 'mollify' appeared in English and the agent noun became 'mollifier'.
Initially it meant 'to make soft' or 'to soothe'; over time the general sense of 'softening or calming' has remained, though specialized technical senses (e.g., a smoothing function in analysis) developed later.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
plural form of 'mollifier'.
Mollifiers were added to the formula to reduce irritation.
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Noun 2
objects or substances that soothe, soften, or reduce intensity (often physical or emotional); things that calm or mitigate.
The cosmetics contain mollifiers to soften the skin.
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Noun 3
(technical, mathematics/analysis) smooth functions (often with compact support) used to 'mollify' or regularize distributions and produce smooth approximations; also called smoothing functions or approximate identities.
In the proof they convolved the distribution with a sequence of mollifiers.
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Last updated: 2025/12/20 14:44