appease

From Middle English apesen, from Old French apeser (“to pacify, bring to peace”).

• IPA^(key): /əˈpiːz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːz

appease (third-person singular simple present appeases, present participle appeasing, simple past and past participle appeased)

1. To make quiet; to calm; to reduce (something) to a state of peace; to dispel (anger, hatred, etc.).

   Synonyms: calm, pacify, quell, quiet, still, lull

   to appease the tumult of the ocean

   • 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable and Company, […], →OCLC:

     'First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet. It is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst!'

2. To make conciliatory offerings or concessions to (someone) in an attempt to dispel their anger, aggression, etc.; to adapt to the demands of; to come to terms with.

   Synonyms: mollify, placate, propitiate

   They appeased the angry gods with burnt offerings.

   • 2017 October 9, Karl Mathiesen, quoting Tony Abbott, “Tony Abbott says climate change is 'probably doing good'”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has suggested climate change is “probably doing good” in a speech in London in which he likened policies to combat it to “primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods” .

   • 2024 October 30, Philip Haigh, “Poor planning and lack of clarity damages rail projects”, in RAIL, number 1021, page 50:

     It's been slowly hacked back, amid fears of escalating costs, by politicians who have also increased those costs by adding expensive structures such as tunnels to appease opponents.

• antagonize

• “appease”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “appease”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• paepaes