simmer down

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simmer down (third-person singular simple present simmers down, present participle simmering down, simple past and past participle simmered down)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To decrease in intensity of anger, agitation, or excitement.

   Synonyms: calm down, cool off, settle down, relax, unwind, pacify, compose

   You need to simmer down and stop yelling at me.

   It took a while for the heated debate to simmer down and for people to start listening to each other.

   • 1870, Mark Twain, Goldsmith's Friend Abroad Again, letter 4:

     "Silence! Now ye had better go slow, my good fellow. This is two or three times you've tried to get off some of your insolence. Lip won't do here. You've got to simmer down."

   • 1910, Stewart Edward White, chapter 73, in The Rules of the Game:

     The agitation, thus deprived of its chief hope, might very well have been expected to simmer down, to die away slowly.

   • 2003 June 30, Nazila Fathi, “British Minister Presses Iran To Allow Nuclear Inspections”, in New York Times, retrieved 9 April 2009:

     Although the street demonstrations have simmered down, protests have continued in other forms.