anodyne

anodyne \AN-uh-dyn\, adjective:

1. Serving to relieve pain; soothing.
2. Not likely to offend; bland; innocuous.
3. A medicine that relieves pain.
4. Anything that calms, comforts, or soothes disturbed feelings.

But for the most part the British charts were clogged with anodyne ballads.
-- Nigel Williamson, "Here's a little story, to tell it is a must", Times (London), January 11, 2000

He is alternately accused of being too much the warrior and too anodyne.
-- Hanna Rosin, "The Madness of Speaker Newt", New Republic, March 17, 1997

Numbness . . . may have replaced pain as the complaint of our century now that aspirin analgesia, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDS), and other anodynes can take away the pains of the civilized world.
-- Howard M. Spiro, Facing Death

An avid fisherman himself, McGarr shares Nellie's philosophy: "I do not merely fish for fish," she would say, "I fish for doubt's anodyne and care's surcease."
-- Marilyn Stasio, "Crime", New York Times, September 19, 1993

This third novel by a reporter for The New York Times shrewdly examines love as an anodyne for rural isolation.
-- "Notable Books of the Year 1997", New York Times, December 7, 1997

Anodyne comes, via Latin, from Greek anodunos, "free from pain," from a-, an-, "without" + odune, "pain."