relieved

UK/ɹɪˈliːvd/US/ɹɪˈliːvd/

adjectiveB2Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,433 of 15,258neutral

Relieved means freed from worry at last. The result came, and it was not the bad one.

It takes to and a verb, or a that-clause: relieved to hear it, relieved that nobody was hurt. The word describes the moment after fear rather than happiness generally, which is why relieved and pleased are not the same. There is a separate physical sense from the verb relieve, meaning to take over from somebody on duty, so a sentry is relieved at midnight. Relieving pain means reducing it.

Definitions of relieved

1adjectiverelievedNo longer anxious, because a feared outcome did not happen.B2
“He was hugely relieved to see the lights still on.”

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 15 of A Man Called Ove.

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relieved in the wild

The mission relieved Soyuz T-13, whose crew had performed unprecedented repairs aboard the previously-dead station.
Soyuz T-14
During General Rizzo's tenure, General Elwell Otis relieved General Wesley Merritt on August 29, as Commander, Department of the Pacific, and as the U.S.
Francisco Rizzo
MILTON In the morning Emily was relieved from her fears for Annette, who came at an early hour.
The Mysteries of Udolpho· Ann Ward Radcliffe

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

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