means The easing or removal of pain, anxiety, or distress — the feeling when something hard finally lets go.

from From Latin 'relevare,' to raise up or lighten, built from 're-' (again) and 'levare' (to lift) — the same 'levare' behind 'lever' and 'levitate,' all of them about taking weight off. It reached English through Old French 'relef,' and the word's oldest sense was literally about lifting a burden; the emotional 'phew' is the same idea felt in the chest. The sculptor's 'relief,' where figures rise up from a flat surface, comes from this very same lifting.