Other forms: moderated, moderates, moderating
Moderate means holding views away from either extreme. A moderate politician, moderate opinion, the moderate wing.
In politics it names the middle ground and is claimed by more people than occupy it. Of an amount it means neither large nor small: moderate exercise, moderate drinking, moderate success — and in health advice moderate is usually a defined quantity rather than a vague one. As a verb, with the stress moved, to moderate is to make less extreme, or to chair a discussion. Note moderation, moderator.
1adjectivemoderateHolding views away from either extreme.
“Moderate voters in the centre will decide who wins the election.”
2verbchairTo make less extreme, or to chair a discussion.
“A well-known journalist will moderate the debate between the candidates.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
moderate is a quality of being middling.
Latin moderatus is the participle of moderari, to restrain, from modus, a measure. Modest, modern and mode come from the same measuring.
Proto-Indo-European
*med-
Latin
moderātus
Middle English
moderat — moderate, temperate
English, today
moderate
Built from
From Middle English moderat (“moderate, temperate”), Latin moderātus, perfect active participle of moderor (“to regulate, to restrain, to moderate”) (see -ate), from moder-, modes-, a stem appearing also in modestus (“moderate, discreet, modest”), from modus (“a measure”); see mode and modest. a doublet of moderato. Displaced native ġemetlīċ and metegian (“to moderate”). Cognate with French modéré.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA