Mitigators and Intensifiers

 Mitigators are the opposite of intensifiers. To make an  adjective less strong use mitigators and more strong use intensifiers 

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 Mitigators are the opposite of intensifiers. When we want to make an adjective less strong we use these words:

fairly - rather - quite

By the end of the day we were rather tired.

The film wasn’t great but it was quite exciting.

and in informal English: pretty

We had a pretty good time at the party.

We call these words mitigators.

Warning
quite
When we use quite with a strong adjective it means the same as absolutely: The food was quite awful. = The food was absolutely awful. As a child he was quite brilliant. = As a child he was absolutely brilliant.

Mitigators with comparatives:

We use these words and phrases as mitigators:

a bit - just a bit - a little - a little bit - just a little bit - rather - slightly

She’s a bit younger than I am.

It takes two hours on the train but it is a little bit longer by road

This one is rather bigger.

We use slightly and rather as mitigators with comparative adjectives in front of a noun:

This is a slightly more expensive model than that.

This is rather bigger one than that.

Adjectives as intensifiers:

We use some adjectives as intensifiers:

absolute

total  - complete

utter  - perfect

real

We say:

He’s a complete idiot.

They were talking utter nonsense.

… but we do not say:

The idiot was complete.

The nonsense they were talking was utter.

Intensifiers:

(Intermediate)

We use words like very, really and extremely to make adjectives stronger:

It’s a very interesting story

Everyone was very excited.

It’s a really interesting story.

Everyone was extremely excited

We call these words intensifiers. Other intensifiers are:

amazingly	exceptionally	incredibly
remarkably	particularly	unusually

We also use enough to say more about an adjective, but enough comes after its adjective:

If you are seventeen you are old enough to drive a car.

I can’t wear those shoes. They’re not big enough.

Intensifiers with strong adjectives:

Strong adjectives are words like:

enormous, huge = very big

tiny = very small

brilliant = very clever

awful; terrible; disgusting; dreadful = very bad

certain = very sure

excellent; perfect; ideal; wonderful; splendid = very good

delicious = very tasty

We do not normally use very with these adjectives. We do not say something is "very enormous" or someone is "very brilliant". 

With strong adjectives, we normally use intensifiers like:

absolutely	completely	totally	utterly
really	exceptionally	particularly	quite

The film was absolutely awful.

He was an exceptionally brilliant child.

The food smelled really disgusting.