Meaning & use
lighten your burden
Last updated
Meaning
phraseidiom
to make a difficult responsibility or emotional weight easier to deal with
Grammar: Transitive phrase: you lighten someone's burden, or someone's burden is lightened.
Patterns
- lighten someone's burden
- lighten the burden of something
- lighten your burden
A few kind words can lighten your burden when you are stressed.
The new software helped lighten the burden on the accounting team.
Sharing your problems with a friend may lighten your burden.
Common combinations
- lighten the burden
- The charity aims to lighten the burden of families in need.
- lighten someone's burden
- Her help really lightened my burden.
- lighten the burden on someone
- The new policy will lighten the burden on small businesses.
Synonyms and how they differ
- ease
- Ease means to make something less severe or difficult; lighten your burden is more specific to emotional or responsibility weight.
- alleviate
- Alleviate is more formal and often used for pain or suffering; lighten your burden is more conversational.
Opposites
Practice
Which sentence uses the phrase correctly?
Choose one answer.
The phrase means to make a difficult load easier to bear, so 'Taking a break can lighten your burden' fits. Option An is wrong because carrying more weight would make a burden heavier, not lighter; option B is wrong because taking on extra work adds to the burden; option D has the subject and object reversed.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “lighten your burden”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.