Alleviate
Part of speech: verb
Definition: To make less severe, as a pain or difficulty.
Example sentence: We need a new generation of leaders who will promote policies that will foster economic growth and alleviate the middle class squeeze, defend America's national security against those who threaten our people, reform the culture of Washington, D.C., and reassert the constitutional principles that make our country unique.
Relieve
Part of speech: verb
Definition: To lift up; to raise again, as one who has fallen; to cause to rise.To cause to seem to rise; to put in relief; to give prominence or conspicuousness to; to set off by contrast.To raise up something in; to introduce a contrast or variety into; to remove the monotony or sameness of.To raise or remove, as anything which depresses, weighs down, or crushes; to render less burdensome or afflicting; to alleviate; to abate; to mitigate; to lessen; as, to relieve pain; to relieve the wants of the poor.To free, wholly or partly, from any burden, trial, evil, distress, or the like; to give ease, comfort, or consolation to; to give aid, help, or succor to; to support, strengthen, or deliver; as, to relieve a besieged town.To release from a post, station, or duty; to put another in place of, or to take the place of, in the bearing of any burden, or discharge of any duty.To ease of any imposition, burden, wrong, or oppression, by judicial or legislative interposition, as by the removal of a grievance, by indemnification for losses, or the like; to right.
Example sentence: I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.