appease

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

• IPA^(key): /əˈpiːz/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• 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 to a state of peace; to dispel (anger or hatred).

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

   to appease the tumult of the ocean

   • 1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 21, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →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!'

   • 2017 October 9, Karl Mathiesen, quoting Tony Abbott, “Tony Abbott says climate change is 'probably doing good'”, in The Guardian‎, →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” .

2. To come to terms with; to adapt to the demands of.

   Synonyms: mollify, propitiate

   They appeased the angry gods with burnt offerings.

• antagonize

• “appease”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “appease”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• paepaes