Other forms: mediated, mediating, mediates
To mediate is to stand between two sides and help them reach agreement. Not judging — steering.
The mediator has no power to decide, which is the crucial difference from arbitration, where somebody does. Divorce, industrial disputes and international conflicts all use mediation, and it takes between or in. There is a second, more abstract sense in academic writing, where something that mediates a relationship sits between two things and shapes how they connect. The noun is mediation and the person is a mediator.
1verbmediateTo act between two sides in order to help them agree.
“A neighbour mediated between the two families.”
Latin
mediātus
Middle English
mediat — intermediate; intercessory
English, today
mediate
The adjective is 1440s in Middle English, the verb in 1538; from Middle English mediat (“intermediate; intercessory”), borrowed from Latin mediātus, perfect passive participle of mediō (“to divide in the middle; (in Medieval Latin) to be in the middle, be or become between, mediate”) (see -ate and -ate), from medius + -ō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA