agree to disagree

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agree to disagree (third-person singular simple present agrees to disagree, present participle agreeing to disagree, simple past and past participle agreed to disagree)

1. (idiomatic, of two persons or other parties) To accept each other's opinions and cease arguing; to peacefully acknowledge that an agreement will not be reached.

   I know we're never going to agree on the merits of vegetarianism so let's agree to disagree, shall we?

   • 1931, Cyrus Hall McCormick III, The Century of the Reaper, page 29:

     By 1849, they agreed amicably to disagree, and McCormick bought the Ogden and Jones half of the business for $65,000.

   • 1978, Richard Nixon, RN: the Memoirs of Richard Nixon‎, Grosset & Dunlap, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 571:

     We knew that no agreement concerning Taiwan could be reached at this time. While both sides could agree that Taiwan was a part of China — a position supported by both the Peking and Taiwan governments — we would have to oppose the use of military force by Peking to bring Taiwan under Communist rule.
     Our lengthy discussions resulted as we expected: we could only agree to disagree and to reflect our differences in the communiqué. Thanks largely to Kissinger's negotiating skill and Chou's common sense, the Chinese finally agreed to sufficiently modified language.